OUR 
DISHONEST 

CONSTITUTION 

ALLAN  L.BENSON 


10 


r. 


: 


OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 


OUR  DISHONEST 
CONSTITUTION 


BY 

ALLAN  L.  BENSON 

tf 

Author  of 
"The  Truth  About  Socialism,"  etc. 


\ 


NEW  YORK 

B.  W.  HUEBSCH 

1914 


PHEUN 

Copyright,  1913-14 
BY  THE  PEARSON  PUBLISHING  CO. 

Copyright,  1914 
BY  ALLAN  L.  BENSON 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 
I      BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RlCH    ........         I 

II  FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  " 20 

III  WASHINGTON  AND  His  GROUP 36 

IV  "  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "     ....     ...    ..     .  54 

V  WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE 71 

v  VI    THE  BEST  CONSTITUTION,  IN  ITSELF,  WOULD 

NOT  BE  ENOUGH 90 

VII    THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF  ......  93 

VIII    WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS  .     .     .   . ...     .     .  113 

IX    REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS  .     ;.     ..     ...     .     .  132 

X    HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL    ..     ..    ,.,     .     .     .  149 

UXI     SOCIALISM     .     .     .,     .     ,.,    :..     ......  169 

APPENDIX:  NATIONAL  SOCIALIST  PLATFORM     .  177 


774193 


OUR 
DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

CHAPTER  I 

BY   THE   RICH   FOR  THE  RICH 

EVERY  time  I  go  to  Philadelphia,  I  go  to  the  room 
in  which  the  Constitution  was  made.  I  see  the  chair 
in  which  Washington  sat.  I  see  the  pictured  sun  with 
gilded  rays  on  the  back  of  the  chair  —  the  pictured  sun 
that,  throughout  the  convention,  so  puzzled  Franklin, 
because  he  could  not  tell  whether  it  was  rising  or  setting. 
And,  as  I  look  about  me,  I  am  swept  ;>;/  a-  feeling  of 
solemnity. 

Here  I  am  in  the  hall  of  the  demi-gods  bf'Wl'ofia-;!; 
read  when  a  boy. 

Here  I  am  where  Washington  was,  where  Franklin 
was,  where  Madison  was,  where  Hamilton  was. 

Here  I  am  where  the  Constitution  was  born. 

Over  and  over  again  these  feelings  sweep  through  me, 
because  the  clutch  of  the  things  that  one  hears  in  his 
youth  is  a  clutch  indeed. 

But  the  clutch  of  the  things  that  one  hears  in  his 
youth  is  often  a  clutch  that  should  be  broken.  The 
clutch  of  everything  that  is  not  true  should  be  broken. 
The  clutch  of  the  Constitution  is  not  true. 

It  is  not  true,  because  the  Constitution  was  not  made 
to  do  what  we  believe  it  was  made  to  do,  nor  was  it 

i 


2          OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

made  by  the  kind  of  men  whom  we  believe  made  it.  We 
believe  the  Constitution  was  made  by  the  "  wise  and  the 
good  "  of  its  day  to  enable  the  people  of  the  United 
States  to  rule  themselves  —  to  make  a  great  experiment 
in  democratic  government.  Yet  the  fact  is  that  if 
to-day  we  were  to  delegate  the  task  of  drafting  a  na- 
tional constitution  to  a  select  committee  of  the  National 
Association  of  Manufacturers  and  their  attorneys  we 
should  not  have  a  body  differing  materially  in  spirit 
from  the  convention  of  1787.  Nor  should  we  be  likely 
to  get  a  Constitution  that  in  spirit  differed  materially 
From  the  one  that  was  made  in  1787. 

The  Constitution  of  1787,  under  which  we  still  live, 
was  made  by  a  small  class  to  further  the  interests  of 
that  class.  The  gentlemen  who  made  the  present  Con- 
stitution did  not  intend  that  the  people  should  ever  gain 
control  of  this  government.  The  people  were  barred. 
Not  a  workingman,  or  anyone  who  by  the  widest  stretch 
o_f  the  ^imagination  could  be  considered  a  representative 
Of  the  vybFkrn'g  class,  sat  as  a  delegate  in  the  convention, 
ybe  people  were  barred  from  the  slightest  knowledge 
cf.'the.-prDceedin'gs  of  the  convention  and  after  the  pro- 
ceedings were  finished,  the  people  were  barred  from 
voting  upon  the  Constitution  itself. 

Never  for  a  moment  did  it  occur  to  those  aristocratic 
ancestors  of  ours  to  let  the  people  pass  upon  their  work. 
Instead,  the  Constitution  was  submitted  to  state  con- 
ventions elected  by  minorities  of  the  people.  In  those 
days,  only  a  part  of  the  people  could  vote.  Those  who 
had  property  could  vote.  Most  of  those  who  had  no 
property  could  not  vote.  Most  people  had  no  property. 

Yet,  truthful  as  these  statements  are,  almost  nobody 
believes  them.  The  public  school  teacher  who  gives  chil- 
dren their  first  glimpses  of  American  history  does  not 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  3 

believe  them.  The  newspaper  editor  who  takes  the  chil- 
dren, even  before  they  leave  school,  and  talks  to  them 
until  they  die,  extols  the  Constitution  almost  as  if  it  were 
a  sacred  document.  Almost  anywhere  and  everywhere 
can  be  found  only  those  who  believe  that  the  funda- 
mental law  of  this  land  was  wrought  out  by  great  souls 
wholly  devoted  to  the  cause  of  democracy. 

The  only  exceptions  are  those  who  know  the  facts. 
Men  who  have  gone  into  the  history  of  the  Constitution 
and  the  histories  of  those  who  made  it  know  better. 
They  know  that  the  Constitution  was  made  to  prevent 
the  people  from  ruling  themselves  rather  than  to  enable 
them  to  rule  themselves.  Also,  they  know  that  it  is 
because  the  Constitution  is  doing  much  of  what  it  was 
intended  to  do  that  the  people  are  having  great  difficulty 
in  ruling  themselves. 

President  Wilson  is  one  of  those  who  know  the  facts 
about  the  Constitution.  In  a  book  entitled  "  Division 
and  Reunion  "  he  gave  some  of  the  facts.  He  said : 

"  The  Federal  government  was  not  by  intention  a 
democratic  government.  In  plan  and  structure  it  had 
been  meant  to  check  the  sweep  and  power  of  popular  ma- 
jorities. The  senate,  it  was  believed,  would  be  a  strong- 
hold of  conservatism,  if  not  of  aristocracy  and  wealth. 
The  President,  it  was  expected,  would  be  the  choice  of 
representative  men  acting  in  the  electoral  college,  and 
not  of  the  people.  The  Federal  judiciary  was  looked  to, 
with  its  virtually  permanent  membership,  to  hold  the 
entire  structure  of  national  politics  in  nice  balance 
against  all  disturbing  influences,  whether  of  popular  im- 
pulse or  of  official  overbearance. 

"  Only  in  the  house  of  representatives  were  the  people 
to  be  accorded  an  immediate  audience  and  a  direct  means 
of  making  their  will  effective  in  affairs.  The  govern- 


4          OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

ment  had,  in  fact,  been  originated  and  organized  upon 
the  initiative  and  primarily  in  the  interest  of  the  mer- 
cantile and  wealthy  classes.  Originally  conceived  as 
an  effort  to  accommodate  commercial  disputes  between 
the  States,  it  had  been  urged  to  adoption  by  a  minority, 
under  the  concerted  and  aggressive  leadership  of  able 
men  representing  a  ruling  class.  The  Federalists  not 
only  had  on  their  side  the  power  of  convincing  argu- 
ment, but  also  the  pressure  of  a  strong  and  intelligent 
class,  possessed  of  unity  and  informed  by  a  conscious 
solidarity  of  material  interests." 

That  is  good  history,  but  unfortunately  it  is  not  the  kind 
of  history  that  is  taught  in  the  public  schools  and  per- 
petuated in  the  newspapers.  Common  people  are  not 
permitted  to  know  that  rich  men  founded  this  govern- 
ment for  their  own  purposes.  Common  people  don't 
fight  well  in  wartime,  for  a  government  that  they  know 
is  neither  for  them  nor  was  ever  intended  for  them. 
Nor  do  common  people  submit  to  continuous  robbery  in 
times  of  peace  merely  because  the  robbery  is  committed 
according  to  the  rules  laid  down  by  a  government  that 
they  know  was  founded  by  the  rich  for  the  benefit  of 
the  rich. 

Therefore,  the  common  people  are  taught  to  hold  the 
Constitution  in  veneration.  If  a  foreigner  wishes  to 
become  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  he  must  swear, 
among  other  things,  that  he  believes  in  the  principles 
laid  down  in  the  Constitution.  If  the  people  of  this 
country  knew  the  real  principles  and  purposes  that  un- 
derlie our  Constitution  they  would  not  permit  a  for- 
eigner who  believed  in  it  to  enter  the  country.  They 
would  regard  him  either  as  a  fool  or  a  fraud.  A  for- 
eigner, at  least,  should  be  supposed  to  know  something 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  5 

of  the  sort  of  government  we  have  here.  There  is  small 
chance  for  the  average  American  citizen  to  know,  but 
the  foreigner,  so  long  as  he  remains  in  his  native  land, 
is  not  lied  to  in  his  schools  and  by  his  newspapers  about 
American  institutions. 

Professor  Beard  of  Columbia  University  is  another 
man  who  knows  the  facts  about  our  Constitution  and 
the  men  who  made  it.  I  commend  Professor  Beard 
most  heartily  to  all  those  who  wish  to  be  informed  as  to 
these  matters.  Professor  Beard  has  recently  published 
a  book  entitled  "  An  Economic  Interpretation  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  "  *  that  is  far  and  away 
the  best  book  of  its  kind  ever  written.  Where  other  men 
have  skimmed  the  surface,  Beard  has  gone  through  to 
the  core.  He  stayed  months  in  Washington  to  get 
to  the  core.  In  his  search  for  ancient  papers  and 
documents  in  the  Treasury  Department,  he  went  into 
vaults  that  were  so  filled  with  dust  that  it  was  necessary 
to  excavate  the  papers  with  a  vacuum  cleaner.  But  when 
he  came  back  to  the  surface  he  had  damning  evidence 
against  a  good  many  of  the  "  patriot  fathers."  He  then 
knew  why  they  were  so  anxious,  not  only  for  a  new  con- 
stitution, but  for  the  particular  kind  of  a  constitution 
that  was  afterward  adopted.  He  knew,  because  he 
looked  up  their  investments  and  read  some  of  their  let- 
ters. If  the  patriot  fathers  were  still  living  and  doing 
business  as  they  did  125  years  ago  we  should  call  many 
of  them  grafters. 

Let  us  look  at  what  Professor  Beard  terms  his  "  con- 
clusions "  which  appear  at  the  close  of  his  book.  They 
are  presented  as  the  statements  of  a  man  who  did  not 
obtain  his  views  of  the  Constitution  from  public  school 

1  Published  by  the  Macmillan  Company,  New  York. 


6          OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

teachers,  newspaper  editors  or  other  persons  who  know 
little  or  nothing  about  the  Constitution.  Professor 
Beard  says: 

"  The  movement  for  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  originated  and  carried  through  principally 
by  four  groups  of  personalty  interests  which  had  been 
adversely  affected  under  the  articles  of  confederation: 
money,  public  securities,  manufactures,  trade  and  ship- 
ping. 

"  The  first  firm  steps  toward  the  formation  of  the 
Constitution  were  taken  by  a  small  and  active  group  of 
men  immediately  interested  through  their  personal  pos- 
sessions in  the  outcome  of  their  labors. 

"  No  popular  vote  was  taken  directly  or  indirectly  on 
the  proposition  to  call  the  convention  which  drafted  the 
Constitution. 

"  The  propertyless  masses  under  the  prevailing  suf- 
frage qualifications  were  excluded  at  the  outset  from 
participation  (through  representatives)  in  the  work  of 
framing  the  Constitution. 

"  The  members  of  the  Philadelphia  convention  which 
drafted  the  Constitution  were,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
immediately,  directly  and  personally  interested  in,  and 
derived  economic  advantages  from,  the  establishment 
of  the  new  system. 

"  The  Constitution  was  essentially  an  economic  docu- 
ment, based  upon  the  concept  that  the  fundamental  pri- 
vate rights  of  property  are  anterior  to  government  and 
morally  beyond  the  reach  of  popular  majorities. 

"  The  major  portion  of  the  members  of  the  conven- 
tion are  on  record  as  recognizing  the  claim  of  property 
to  a  special  and  defensive  position  in  the  Constitution. 

"  In  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution,  about  three- 
fourths  of  the  adult  males  failed  to  vote  on  the  question, 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  7 

having  abstained  from  the  elections  at  which  delegates 
to  the  state  conventions  were  chosen,  either  on  account 
of  their  indifference  or  their  disfranchisement  by  prop- 
erty qualifications. 

"  The  Constitution  was  ratified  by  a  vote  of  probably 
not  more  than  one-sixth  of  the  adult  males. 

"  It  is  questionable  whether  a  majority  of  the  voters 
participating  in  the  elections  for  the  state  conventions 
in  New  York,  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Virginia, 
and  South  Carolina  actually  approved  the  ratification  of 
the  Constitution. 

"  The  leaders  who  supported  the  Constitution  in  the 
ratifying  conventions  represented  the  same  economic 
groups  as  the  members  of  the  Philadelphia  convention; 
and,  in  a  large  number  of  instances,  they  were  also  di- 
rectly and  personally  interested  in  the  outcome  of  their 
efforts. 

"  In  the  ratification,  it  became  manifest  that  the  line 
of  cleavage,  for  and  against  the  Constitution,  was  be- 
tween substantial  personalty  interests  on  the  one  hand 
and  the  small  farming  and  debtor  interests  on  the  other. 

"  The  Constitution  was  not  created  by  '  the  whole  peo- 
ple' as  the  jurists  have  said;  neither  was  it  created  by 
'  the  States '  as  Southern  nullifiers  long  contended ;  but 
it  was  the  work  of  a  consolidated  group  whose  interests 
knew  no  state  boundaries,  and  were  truly  national  in 
their  scope." 

Professor  J.  Allen  Smith,  of  the  University  of  Wash- 
ington, gives  similar  testimony  in  his  admirable  work, 
"  The  Spirit  of  American  Government." 

"  It  is  difficult  to  understand,"  says  he  (pages  31-32), 
"  how  any  one  who  has  read  the  proceedings  of  the 
Federal  Convention  can  believe  that  it  was  the  intention 
of  that  body  to  establish  a  democratic  government.  The 


8         OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

evidence  is  overwhelming  that  the  men  who  sat  in  that 
convention  had  no  faith  in  the  wisdom  or  political  ca- 
pacity of  the  people.  Their  aim  and  purpose  was  not 
to  secure  a  larger  measure  of  democracy,  but  to  elim- 
inate, as  far  as  possible,  the  direct  influence  of  the  people 
on  legislation  and  public  policy.  That  body,  it  is  true, 
contained  many  illustrious  men  who  were  actuated  by 
a  desire  to  further  what  they  conceived  to  be  the  wel- 
fare of  the  country.  They  represented,  however,  the 
wealthy  and  conservative  classes,  and  had,  for  the  most 
part,  but  little  sympathy  with  the  popular  theory  of  gov- 
ernment." 

Professor  Smith  also  says: 

"  In  the  United  States,  at  the  present  time,  we  are 
trying  to  make  an  undemocratic  constitution  the  vehicle 
of  democratic  rule.  The  Constitution  was  framed  for 
one  purpose  while  we  are  trying  to  use  it  for  another." 

Students  of  the  Constitution,  from  Woodrow  Wilson 
down,  know  such  to  be  the  case.  Victims  of  the  Con- 
stitution, from  the  lowliest  workingman  up,  know  noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  They  believe  in  the  Constitution. 
They  believe  it  was  made  for  them. 

Gentlemen  of  this  sort  should  wake  up.  The  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  was  made  for  them  in  the 
same  sense  that  sheep  shears  are  made  for  sheep.  The 
gentlemen  who  made  the  Constitution  had  sheep  to  shear. 
They  belonged  to  a  class.  The  class  to  which  they  be- 
longed was  the  wealthy  class.  The  wealthy  class  was  by 
no  means  satisfied  with  the  way  things  were  going  un- 
der the  articles  of  confederation.  Some  of  the  sheep 
were  getting  away.  Worse  than  that,  they,  were  getting 
away  with  their  fleeces  on.  Gentlemen  who  have  sheep 
to  shear  are  always  pained  at  such  a  spectacle.  We  have 
the  same  sort  of  gentlemen  with  us  to-day.  They  talk 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  9 

to-day  —  whenever  sheep  get  away  —  as  the  rich  men 
talked  when  the  articles  of  confederation  were  in  force. 

By  this  it  is  not  meant  that  the  articles  of  confedera- 
tion which  were  drafted  by  the  Continental  Congress  in 
1787  and  became  effective  in  1781,  were  above  just 
criticism.  They  were  not.  They  were  good  as  far  as 
they  went  but  they  did  not  go  far  enough.  They  con- 
tained nothing  that  was  bad  but  they  lacked  much  that 
was  good.  They  also  contained  much  that  was  good. 
They  made  the  congress  of  the  United  States  the  great 
implement  of  the  government.  They  put  no  courts 
above  it.  They  put  nothing  above  it. 

Congress,  too,  was  composed  of  but  one  house;  no 
senate  was  tolerated.  And  they  made  every  member 
of  congress  subject  to  instant  recall  at  the  will  of  the 
people.  The  congressional  term  was  only  one  year,  but 
that  made  no  difference.  Members  of  congress  were 
intended  to  be  responsive  to  the  will  of  those  who  elected 
them  and  provision  was  made  for  displacing  them  the 
moment  they  should  cease  to  be  so. 

The  chief  defect  in  the  articles  of  confederation  was 
that  they  gave  congress  too  little  power.  States  were 
permitted  to  snap  their  fingers  at  congress.  States  did 
snap  their  fingers  at  congress.  Congress  could  appor- 
tion taxes  among  the  several  States,  but  it  could  not  com- 
pel the  States  to  pay  them.  Many  of  the  States  did  not 
pay  their  taxes.  That  made  the  government  anemic. 
It  also  made  the  government  contemptible.  In  this 
world  of  governments,  nothing  is  more  ridiculous  than 
a  government  that  cannot  govern. 

There  were  other  troubles,  too.  We  had  a  little  trade, 
even  in  those  days.  We  exported  some  things  and  im- 
ported others.  The  blessed  tariff  had  also  been  dis- 
covered. But  who  applied  the  tariff?  Congress?  Not 


io        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

at  all.  The  various  States.  Each  State  that  had  a  sea- 
port made  its  own  tariffs.  And,  unfortunately,  no  two 
tariff  schedules  were  alike.  Therefore,  the  cost  of  im- 
ported goods  was  not  the  same  in  any  two  States. 
Moreover,  the  States  that  had  no  seaports  were  held 
up  by  the  States  that  had  seaports.  James  Madison 
described  the  situation  in  picturesque  phrase  when  he 
said  that  "  New  Jersey,  placed  between  Philadelphia  and 
New  York,  was  likened  to  a  cask  tapped  at  both  ends; 
and  North  Carolina,  between  Virginia  and  South 
Carolina,  to  a  patient  bleeding  at  both  arms." 

But  the  saddest  feature  of  the  case  was  that  the  rich 
men  of  the  day  were  bleeding  both  at  the  pocket  book 
and  at  the  bank  book.  They  had  invested  in  things  that 
were  not  turning  out.  As  the  patriots  of  all  days  do, 
they  had  tried  to  make  money  out  of  the  activities  of  the 
government.  They  had  tried  to  use  inside  information 
to  promote  outside  exploitation.  They  had  sought  to 
relieve  the  distress  of  the  poor  and  the  needy  by  buying 
up,  at  a  few  cents  on  the  dollar,  the  scrip  paid  to  Revolu- 
tionary soldiers,  in  the  hope  that  the  scrip  would  soon  go 
to  par.  And  the  scrip  had  not  gone  to  par.  Nor  had 
lands  bought  at  a  few  cents  an  acre  gone  up  to  a  few 
dollars  an  acre. 

Naturally,  these  gentlemen  could  see  nothing  good  in 
a  government  under  which  they  could  not  increase  their 
riches.  What  was  government  for  if  not  to  increase  the 
riches  of  those  who  had  riches  to  increase?  So  they  be- 
gan to  abuse  the  government.  They  began  to  cry  out  that 
the  government  was  worthless.  Times  were  represented 
to  be  so  hard  that  people  arose  from  their  breakfast  tables 
hungry  for  their  suppers.  The  rich  men  wailed  so 
loudly  about  hard  times  that  the  echoes  of  their  cries 
have  rung  through  the  centuries  down  to  our  times. 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  11 

Yet,  there  is  just  the  slightest  suspicion  that  this  grief 
exhibition  was  a  little  overdone.  There  is  just  a  suspi- 
cion that  while  times  were  indeed  bad  for  the  grafters 
they  were  not  very  bad  for  the  rest  of  the  people.  Ben- 
jamin Franklin,  who  was  alive  and  about  during  those 
years,  said  times  were  exceedingly  good  for  the  rest  of 
the  people.  Professor  Beard  quotes  him  as  saying  so. 

"Early  in  1787,"  says  the  professor  (p.  47),  "before 
the  convention  was  called,  Franklin  declared  that  the 
country  was,  on  the  whole,  so  prosperous  that  there  was 
every  reason  for  profound  thanksgiving.  He  men- 
tioned, it  is  true,  that  there  were  some  who  complained 
of  hard  times,  slack  trade  and  scarcity  of  money,  but  he 
was  quick  to  add  that  there  never  was  an  age  nor  a  coun- 
try in  which  there  were  not  some  people  so  circumstanced 
as  to  find  it  hard  to  make  a  living  and  that  '  it  is  always 
in  the  power  of  a  small  number  to  make  a  great  clamor/ 
But  taking  the  several  classes  of  the  community  as  a 
whole,  prosperity,  contended  Franklin,  was  widespread 
and  obvious.  Never  was  the  farmer  paid  better  prices 
for  his  products,  '  as  the  published  prices  current  abun- 
dantly testify.'  " 

Thus  do  we  see  that  history  is  usually  but  fable  fabri- 
cated by  one's  favorite  liar.  The  gentlemanly  patriots 
who  were  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  get  a  new  con- 
stitution in  1786  and  thereabouts,  were  unanimous  in  the 
statement  that  times  were  bad.  To  this  day,  they  are  dis- 
puted only  by  Franklin  and  the  market  reports  of  their 
day.  Yet  their  word  is  almost  everywhere  accepted, 
chiefly  because  no  other  word  is  often  heard.  Not  many 
persons  ever  heard  of  what  Franklin  said  or  of  the  mar- 
ket reports  to  which  he  referred. 

Our  patriot  forefathers  were  remarkable,  however,  for 
other  reasons  than  their  ability  to  see  a  famine  where 


12        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

none  existed.  They  were  remarkable  for  their  colossal 
audacity.  What  should  we  say,  in  our  day,  for  instance, 
if  Mr.  Rockefeller  and  a  contingent  of  great  financiers 
were  to  call  their  lawyers  around  them  and  tell  them 
to  call  a  convention  to  meet  in  Chicago  on  a  certain  day 
to  amend  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States? 
Should  we  not  be  likely  to  say  to  Mr.  Rockefeller  and 
his  associates :  "  You  gentlemen  are  doubtless  very 
kind,  but  we  have  already  provided  the  manner  in  which 
steps  may  be  taken  to  alter  our  Constitution,  and  the 
manner  you  have  proposed  is  not  the  one  we  have 
chosen." 

So  had  the  American  people,  in  1787,  laid  down  the 
method  that  should  be  followed  in  amending  the  articles 
of  confederation.  The  articles  specifically  provided  that 
no  amendment  should  be  made  except  by  congress  and 
the  legislatures  of  all  of  the  States.  In  other  words,  a 
proposed  amendment  must  first  be  introduced  in  con- 
gress and,  if  approved,  must  then  be  transmitted  to  the 
legislatures  of  all  the  States.  Nor  could  the  amend- 
ment succeed  if  a  single  state  legislature  should  object. 
Every  legislature  in  the  union  must  consent  or  there 
could  be  no  amendment. 

That  was  fairly  plain.  No  one  should  have  misun- 
derstood. No  one  did  misunderstand.  And,  at  first, 
the  patriot  forefathers  with  the  fat  purses  made  an  ef- 
fort to  follow  the  law.  They  told  congress  how  they 
should  like  to  have  the  Constitution  amended.  They 
asked  congress  to  pass  the  required  amendments  and 
send  them  on  to  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States. 
Congress  seemed  deaf,  so  the  requests  were  repeated 
again  and  again.  But  congress  budged  not;  not  to  any 
great  extent,  at  any  rate. 

Then  the  patriot  forefathers  sought  to  take  the  situa- 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  13 

tion  into  their  own  hands.  They  went  to  the  legislature 
of  Virginia.  They  induced  the  legislature  of  Virginia 
to  adopt  a  resolution  inviting  the  legislatures  of  the  sev- 
eral States  to  send  delegates  to  meet  in  Annapolis  in 
1786.  The  ostensible  reason  for  the  meeting  was  to 
"  take  into  consideration  the  trade  of  the  United  States." 
Virginia  appointed  as  her  commissioners,  James  Madi- 
son and  Edmund  Randolph.  The  Virginia  commis- 
sioners were  at  Annapolis,  ready  for  business,  at  the  ap- 
pointed time  —  the  first  Monday  in  September,  1786. 
But  only  four  other  States  were  represented,  and  the 
meeting  came  to  nothing. 

That  is  not  quite  an  exact  statement  of  the  facts. 
The  meeting  did  not  come  to  nothing.  No  business  was 
done,  because  no  quorum  was  present,  but  the  plans  of 
the  rich  gentlemen  who  sought  to  bring  the  meeting 
about  were  revealed.  They  disclosed  the  fact  that  what 
they  were  about  was  to  ignore  the  method  provided  by 
the  Constitution  for  its  amendment  and  force  such 
amendments  as  they  desired  by  methods  of  their  own. 

Close  observance  will  detect  the  manner  in  which  the 
patriot  forefathers  revealed  their  intentions.  It  will  be 
noted  that  the  resolution  adopted  by  the  Virginia  legis- 
lature in  suggesting  the  Annapolis  conference  declared 
that  the  meeting  was  to  be  held  to  "  consider  the  trade 
of  the  United  States."  Of  course,  anybody  had  a  right 
to  meet  anybody  who  would  meet  him  "  to  consider  the 
trade  of  the  United  States."  Therefore,  it  seemed  per-' 
fectly  plain  and  above-board  for  the  legislature  of  Vir- 
ginia to  propose  that  delegates  appointed  by  the  legisla- 
tures should  do  what  an  equal  number  of  nobodies  might 
have  done  quite  as  legally. 

But  when  no  quorum  appeared  at  Annapolis,  the  gen- 
tlemen who  represented  the  five  States  that  responded 


14        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

came  out  into  the  open.  They  adopted  a  resolution  sug- 
gesting that  another  attempt  be  made  to  hold  a  confer- 
ence. And  they  suggested  that  the  conference  be  held 
"  to  devise  such  further  provisions  as  shall  appear  to 
them  necessary  to  render  the  Constitution  of  the  federal 
government  adequate  to  the  exigencies  of  the  union." 
In  other  words,  they  recommended  that  a  meeting  be| 
held  to  amend  the  Constitution,  though  the  Constitution 
itself  said  that  it  should  not  be  amended  except  upon 
the  initiative  of  congress  and  the  concurrence  of  all  the 
state  legislatures. 

In  short,  it  appears  to  have  been  the  purpose  of  the 
energetic  gentlemen  who  brought  about  the  futile  at- 
tempt at  a  conference  at  Annapolis  to  use  it  to  introduce 
the  actual  convention  that  was  held  the  next  year  in 
Philadelphia.  James  Madison  said  as  much  in  a  letter 
to  Thomas  Jefferson,  under  date  of  August  12,  1786. 
"  Many  gentlemen,  both  within  and  without  congress," 
he  wrote,  "  wish  to  make  this  meeting  subservient  to  a 
plenipotentiary  convention  for  amending  the  confedera- 
tion." Max  Farrand,  professor  of  History  at  Yale,  goes 
even  further.  In  "  The  Framing  of  the  Constitution  " 
(p.  9)  Professor  Farrand  says  that  "  The  French  rep- 
resentative in  this  country  wrote  home  to  his  govern- 
ment, what  was  evidently  whispered  among  the  elect, 
that  there  was  no  expectation  and  no  intention  that  any- 
thing should  be  done  by  the  convention  beyond  preparing 
the  way  for  another  meeting,  and  that  the  report  was 
hurried  through  before  sufficient  States  were  represented 
to  be  embarrassing." 

Professor  Beard  takes  the  same  view.  On  page  62 
of  his  work  on  "  An  Economic  Interpretation  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  he  says  that  "Al- 
though the  Annapolis  convention  was  ostensibly  con- 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  15 

cerned  with  commercial  regulation  primarily,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  it  was  the  creation  of  the  men  who  had  been 
working  in  congress  and  out  for  a  general  revision  of  the 
whole  system." 

What  should  we  think  to-day  if  Mr.  Rockefeller  and 
some  of  his  friends  were  to  call  a  meeting,  through  a 
friendly  state  legislature,  for  a  convention  to  revise  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States?  And  what  should 
we  think  if  the  convention,  instead  of  merely  revising  the 
Constitution,  were  to  draft  a  new  one? 

Of  course,  the  situation  in  1787  was  not  quite  so 
bad  as  that.  The  appointment  of  delegates  by  state 
legislatures  gave  an  official  coloring  to  the  Philadelphia 
convention.  Yet  it  is  a  bald  fact  that  the  legislatures 
themselves  had  violated  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  in 
sending  delegates  to  a  convention  that,  it  was  intended, 
should  bring  about  amendments  by  extra-constitutional 
methods.  That  congress  trailed  along  in  February, 
1787,  by  inviting  the  States  to  send  delegates  to  the 
Philadephia  convention  that  was  to  be  held  in  May,  is 
of  little  importance.  Congress  felt  that  it  had  to  trail 
along.  The  fact  that  the  States  were  going  ahead  with- 
out either  the  approval  or  consent  of  congress  was  bring- 
ing the  national  law-making  body  into  contempt.  On 
February  21,  when  congress  issued  the  invitation  to  the 
States  to  join  in  the  Philadelphia  convention,  Virginia, 
Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  North  Carolina,  Delaware 
and  Georgia  had  already  appointed  delegates.  The  six 
other  States  that  afterward  appointed  delegates  were 
already  preparing  to  do  so.  So  congress  was  compelled 
to  move  or  be  run  over  —  to  recognize  the. coming  con- 
vention or  be  humiliated. 

Who  were  the  gentlemen  who  were  so  fearful  lest 
the  United  States  should  not  speedily  become  the  pos- 


16        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

sessor  of  a  properly  amended  constitution?  Professor 
Beard  says  that  four  kinds  of  rich  men  brought  about 
the  Philadelphia  convention. 

Gentlemen  who  had  money  at  interest  or  capital  seek- 
ing investment  come  first  on  his  list.  He  says  their  in- 
terests "  were  being  positively  attacked  by  the  makers  of 
paper  money,  stay  laws,  pine  barren  acts  and  other  de- 
vices for  depreciating  the  currency  or  delaying  the  col- 
lection of  debts." 

Next  came  the  gentlemen  who  had  investments  in  pub- 
lic securities.  They  were  really  the  largest  toads  in  the 
puddle.  They  owned  paper  that  had  a  face  value  of 
$60,000,000.  They  had  not  paid  $60,000,000  for  it, 
however.  More  than  half  of  them  had  paid  only  one- 
sixth  or  one-twentieth  of  its  face  value.  They  had  paid 
only  a  little  because  the  value  of  public  securities  had 
shrunken  because  of  the  inability  of  congress  to  compel 
the  States  to  contribute  money  with  which  to  pay  the 
interest  upon  the  public  debt.  But  the  gentlemen  who 
bought  the  paper  at  low  figures  were  good  gamblers. 
They  did  not  know  what  was  going  to  happen,  but  they 
were  willing  to  take  a  chance.  Moreover,  they  were  de- 
termined to  try  to  make  things  happen  that  they  wanted 
to  happen.  They  were  determined  to  try  to  bring  about 
a  new  government  under  a  new  constitution  —  a  govern- 
ment that  would  bring  the  paper  to  par. 

"  It  seems  safe  to  hazard  a  guess,'*  says  Professor 
Beard  (p.  35),  "  that  at  least  $40,000,000  gain  came  to 
the  holders  of  securities  through  the  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  and  the  sound  financial  system  which  it 
made  possible.  This  leaves  out  of  account  the  large 
fortunes  won  by  the  manipulation  of  stocks  after  the 
government  was  established  and  particularly  after  the 
founding  of  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange  in  1792." 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  17 

Capitalists  engaged  in  .manufacturing  clamored  for  a 
new  constitution  because  they  wanted  a  national  gov- 
ernment that  would  have  the  power  to  put  a  protective 
tariff  wall  around  them.  Also,  the  gentlemen  who  were 
engaged  in  land  speculation  wanted  a  new  constitution. 
Most  of  the  patriot  fathers  were  land  speculators.  Pro- 
fessor Beard  mentions  as  land  speculators  "  Washing- 
ton, Franklin,  Gallatin,  Patrick  Henry,  Robert  Morris 
and  James  Wilson,  as  well  as  many  less  well  known/' 
Timothy  Pickering,  who  helped  ratify  the  Constitution 
on  behalf  of  Pennsylvania,  frankly  admitted  that  "  All 
I  am  now  worth  was  gained  by  speculation  in  land." 

"  The  situation,"  says  Professor  Beard,  "  was  this : 
Congress,  under  the  articles  of  confederation,  adopted  a 
policy  of  accepting  certificates  (of  public  indebtedness) 
in  part  payment  for  lands;  and  it  was  hoped  by  some 
that  the  entire  national  debt  might  be  extinguished  in 
this  way.  However,  the  weakness  of  the  confederation, 
the  lack  of  proper  military  forces,  the  uncertainty  as 
to  the  frontiers  kept  the  values  of  the  large  section  held 
for  appreciation  at  an  abnormally  low  price.  Those 
who  had  invested  their  funds  in  these  lands  or  taken 
stocks  in  the  companies  felt  the  adverse  effects  of  the 
prevailing  public  policy,  and  foresaw  the  benefits  which 
might  be  expected  from  a  new  and  stable  government." 

In  other  words,  gentlemen  who  had  bought  public 
paper  at  one-sixth  or  one- twentieth  of  its  face  value  and 
then  exchanged  it  for  public  land  became  aggrieved  be- 
cause the  rise  in  the  price  of  their  property  did  not  meet 
both  their  expectations  and  their  cupidity.  The  lack  of 
"  proper  military  forces,"  for  one  thing,  kept  their  prop- 
erty from  increasing  in  price.  Therefore,  it  became  as 
plain  as  day  that  a  new  government  should  be  installed  to 
put  in  the  field  "proper  military  forces"  and  do  the 


18        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

other  things  that  were  required  to  make  their  invest- 
ments pan  out.  Wherefore,  it  appears  that  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  one  is  a  "  patriot  father  "  or  a  land 
grafter  largely  depends  upon  whether  he  grafted  in  the 
eighteenth  century  or  in  the  twentieth. 

Such  are  the  causes  that  led  up  to  the  creation  of  our 
present  Constitution.  They  are  not  the  causes  that  are 
told  to  school  children,  but  they  are  the  causes.  Any- 
body who  believes  that  a  constitution  framed  in  such 
circumstances  was  made  especially  for  the  common  peo- 
ple is  an  optimist. 

Anyone  who  believes  that  what  these  men  did  126 
years  ago  has  nothing  to  do  with  present-day  problems 
does  not  know  much  either  about  the  cause  or  the  cure 
of  present-day  problems.  The  prices  of  everything  you 
consume  are  powerfully  influenced  by  the  decisions  of 
the  Federal  courts  —  particularly  of  the  supreme  court 
of  the  United  States  —  yet  the  gentlemen  who  decreed 
that  the  supreme  court  should  forever  be  beyond  your 
reach  were  the  gentlemen  who  made  the  Constitution  126 
years  ago. 

The  prices  of  many  commodities  are  also  made  high 
by  reason  of  the  fact  that  public  service  corporations  and 
other  gentlemen  have  bribed  legislative  bodies  to  give 
them  franchises  and  other  public  property.  In  every- 
thing else,  the  law  holds  that  fraud  vitiates  a  contract. 
•  But  in  the  matter  of  bribing  a  legislative  body,  the 
(United  States  supreme  court  long  ago  held  that  under 
the  Constitution  the  act  of  a  legislative  body  could  not 
be  set  aside  even  if  bribery  were  proved. 

That  seems  strange,  but  it  is  the  law  as  the  supreme 
court  has  handed  it  down  to  us  and  grafters  have  profited 
by  it  to  the  extent  of  hundreds  of  millions.  Moreover, 
they  are  profiting  by  it  now  as  they  never  did  before, 


BY  THE  RICH  FOR  THE  RICH  19 

and  this  grafting  must  go  legally  on  either  until  such 
time  as  the  present  Constitution  shall  give  way  to  an- 
other, or  until  the  United  States  supreme  court  shall  be 
flogged  by  public  opinion  into  reversing  itself. 

Because  of  what  these  forefathers  did  in  1787  we  now 
have  a  perplexing  absurdity  in  the  senate.  So  long  as 
senators  were  elected  by  state  legislators,  it  was  intended 
that  the  senators  should  represent  the  States.  But  now 
that  United  States  senators  are  elected  by  the  people  it 
is  intended  that  they  shall  represent  the  people.  If  sena- 
tors represent  people,  it  is  manifestly  absurd  that 
the  handful  of  people  in  Nevada  should  have  the  same 
representation  in  the  senate  that  is  accorded  to  many 
millions  in  New  York.  This  is  particularly  absurd 
when  the  fact  is  considered  that  the  Nevada  senators 
may  have  it  in  their  power  to  block  a  measure  that  has 
been  endorsed  by  the  house  of  representatives,  contain- 
ing more  than  400  members.  Yet  the  Constitution  de- 
clares that  "  no  State,  without  its  consent,  shall  be  de- 
prived of  equal  representation  in  the  senate."  In  other 
words,  it  is  a  question  whether  a  constitutional  amend- 
ment providing  for  representation  in  the  senate  upon  the 
basis  of  population  would  be  "  constitutional,"  even  if 
three- fourths  of  the  States  were  to  ratify  it.  Probably 
it  would  be.  But  the  fact  remains  that  the  Constitution 
says  that  no  State  shall  be  coerced  by  others  in  the  mat- 
ter of  equal  representation  in  the  senate. 


CHAPTER  II 

FACTS   ABOUT   THE   "  FATHERS  " 

1  PURPOSE  to  give  a  brief  but  illuminating  sketch 
of  each  man  who  sat  in  the  Federal  constitutional 
convention  of  1787.  Some  were  grafters.  Some  were 
crooks.  Some  were  of  mediocre  intelligence.  Some  were 
of  extraordinary  intelligence.  But  all  were  capitalists 
or  the  attorneys  of  the  capitalist  class.  That  is  the  great 
fact  to  remember.  All  were  capitalists  or  the  attorneys 
of  the  capitalist  class.  Not  one  of  them  was  a  member 
of  the  great  property  less  working  class  which  then  con- 
stituted and  still  constitutes  the  bulk  of  the  country's 
population.  Not  once  during  the  sessions  of  the  con- 
vention was  the  voice  of  the  great  working  class  heard. 
Whenever  the  class  interests  of  the  rich  and  the  poor 
were  considered  —  and  practically  nothing  else  was  ever 
considered  —  only  the  voice  of  the  rich  class  was  heard. 
All  of  which  tends  to  explain  why  it  is  so  difficult  to  ex- 
tract "  government  by  the  people  and  for  the  people  " 
from  a  constitution  made  by  the  rich  for  the  rich. 

To  save  patriotic  gentlemen  the  trouble  of  calling  me 
a  liar  and  a  blackguard,  I  will  say  that  in  writing  this 
chapter  I  shall,  with  one  exception  to  which  I  shall  call 
attention,  confine  my  quotations  to  two  books.  Every 
statement  of  alleged  fact  about  "  the  fathers  "  may  be 
found  either  in  "  An  Economic  Interpretation  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,"  by  Professor  Charles 
A.  Beard,  of  Columbia  University,  or  in  "  The  Framing 

20 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "    21 

of  the  Constitution/'  by  Professor  Max  Farrand,  of 
Yale. 

A  picturesque  character  was  Jonathan  Dayton,  of  the 
New  Jersey  delegation.  So  far  as  speculation  is  con- 
cerned, Dayton  appears  to  have  been  the  Charles  W. 
Morse  of  the  eighteenth  century.  He  differed  from 
Banker  Morse  chiefly  in  the  fact  that  Morse  was  so  un- 
fortunate as  to  get  into  jail  while  Dayton  was  so  for- 
tunate as  to  keep  out.  Professor  Beard  quotes  a  con- 
temporary historian  who  said  of  this  New  Jersey  dele- 
gate: "Jonathan  Dayton,  the  late  speaker  of  congress, 
is  notorious  from  Boston  to  Georgia.  The  deeds  of 
other  members  of  congress  were  scarcely  known  beyond 
the  circle  of  their  respective  States,  but  the  speculations 
of  this  man  have  rung  through  the  western  world." 

Dayton  was  a  plunger  and  what  we  should  call  in  this 
day  a  grafter.  By  "  grafter  "  I  mean  that  he  took  ad- 
vantage of  his  official  positions  to  make  money.  After 
he  was  elected  to  the  constitutional  convention  he  was 
engaged  in  buying  military  certificates  and  government 
securities.  Military  certificates  were  the  "  scrip "  in 
which  the  Revolutionary  soldiers  were  paid.  On  account 
of  the  poverty  of  the  soldiers  and  the  weakness  of  the 
government  this  scrip  sold  at  a  few  cents  on  the  dollar. 
Government  paper  of  all  kinds  sold  at  a  few  cents  on 
the  dollar.  Dayton  knew  this  paper  would  go  to  par  if 
the  convention  to  which  he  had  been  elected  should  suc- 
ceed in  launching  a  "  stable "  government.  The  con- 
vention might  fail,  but  he  was  willing  to  take  a  chance. 
He  was  willing  to  take  a  chance  in  land,  too.  He 
bought  up  great  tracts  that  he  knew  would  increase 
vastly  in  price  if  the  new  constitution  were  to  prove  a 
success. 

While  the  convention  was  actually  in  session  Dayton 


22        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

and  a  partner  named  John  Cleves  Symmes  entered  upon 
negotiations  for  "  an  enormous  tract  of  land  in  Ohio." 
The  tract  must  have  been  of  some  size,  because  one- 
seventh  of  the  purchase  price  amounted  to  $82,198. 
And,  at  that,  Dayton  and  his  partner  buncoed  the  gov- 
ernment out  of  $30,000  in  the  deal.  By  the  terms  of 
their  agreement  they  were  to  pay  one-seventh  of  the 
price  in  depreciated  military  scrip  and  government  paper. 
Professor  Beard  says  that  "  by  collusion  with  Ludlow, 
the  official  surveyor,  and  the  inadvertence  of  Hamilton, 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,"  they  paid  two-sevenths  of 
the  price  in  such  depreciated  stuff. 

Dayton  was  not  only  a  grafter,  but  he  was  conscious 
of  it.  On  April  17,  1796,  when  he  was  speaker  of  the 
house  of  representatives,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  a  man 
named  Childs  with  whom  he  had  been  speculating  in 
public  lands  and  public  paper.  "  The  contents  of  this 
letter,"  wrote  Dayton,  "are  of  such  a  nature  as  to  ren- 
der it  improper  to  be  seen  by  anyone  except  yourself; 
burn  it,  therefore,  when  you  have  perused  it." 

But  Childs  did  not  burn  it,  and  was  afterwards  glad 
that  he  had  not  done  so.  Dayton  brought  suit  against 
him  and  Childs  produced  not  only  the  letter  herein  men- 
tioned, but  fifteen  others.  After  the  production  of  the 
letters  Dayton  withdrew  his  suit. 

William  Blount,  of  North  Carolina,  was  another 
grafter  who  did  not  scruple  to  use  public  office  to  enrich 
himself.  Born  with  a  golden  spoon  in  his  mouth,  in  the 
form  of  a  large  landed  estate,  he  devoted  his  life  to  an 
attempt  to  collect  not  only  the  teacup  and  saucer,  but 
the  teapot  as  well.  In  other  words,  he  was  "  connected 
with  land  speculation  on  a  la.ge  scale."  He  also  had 
the  distinction  of  being  the  first  gentleman  expelled  from 
the  United  States  Senate,  the  same  being  done  by  a  vote 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "    23 

of  twenty-five  to  one.  President  Adams  caught  him 
in  a  plot  to  wrest  New  Orleans  and  Florida  from  Spain 
and  turn  them  over  to  England,  sent  a  message  to  con- 
gress exposing  him,  and  his  expulsion  quickly  followed, 
the  senate  declaring  him  guilty  of  a  "  high  misdemeanor 
inconsistent  with  public  trust  and  duty."  , 

But  William  Blount  was  not  the  only  citizen  of  doubt-' 
ful  standing  who  helped  to  represent  the  great  State  of 
North  Carolina.  Alexander  Martin  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  delegation.  Martin's  career  would  have  been 
without  a  blemish,  perhaps,  if  he  had  stayed  out  of  the 
army.  Rich  planter  and  slave-owner  that  he  was,  the 
horrors  of  war  were  unfamiliar  sights  to  him,  and  at  the 
battle  of  Germantown  he  was  not  nearly  so  anxious  to 
get  the  enemy  as  he  was  fearful  that  the  enemy  would 
get  him.  As  a  result  he  was  tried  on  and  convicted  of 
a  charge  of  cowardice,  following  which  he  was  dis- 
missed in  disgrace  from  the  army.  But  while  Martin's 
courage  was  not  of  the  highest  order  it  does  not  appear 
that  he  ever  used  public  office  for  his  own  enrichment, 
or  ever  bought  public  securities  for  the  rise  that  he  must 
have  known  would  follow  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. He  was  simply  a  rich  planter  who  looked  at  every- 
thing from  the  rich  planter's  point  of  view  rather  than 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  wage- worker. 

William  Samuel  Johnson  of  Connecticut  never  was 
in  danger  of  military  disgrace  because  he  refused  to 
join  the  army  or  support  the  Revolutionary  cause  in  any 
way.  He  said  he  could  not  conscientiously  help  to  make 
war  against  England.  Having  inherited  enough  money 
to  entitle  him  to  be  described  as  a  "  gentleman,"  he  had 
graduated  from  Yale  and  taken  up  the  practice  of  law 
when  the  war  came  on  and  sent  him  into  retirement. 
While  the  real  patriots  were  fighting,  Johnson,  in  the  se- 


24        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

elusion  of  his  home  at  Stratford,  was  making  plans  for 
the  future.     One  of  the  best  things  that  it  seemed  po; 
sible  for  him  to  do  at  the  time  was  to  marry  the  daugh 
ter  of  a  "  wealthy  gentleman "  of  Stratford,  which  h 
did.     As  soon  as  the  war  was  over  he  resumed  the  prv 
tice  of  law,  worked  up  a  lucrative  practice,  and  spec 
lated  so  heavily  in  securities  of  one  kind  and  anotl 
that  he  attracted  the  attention  of  Jefferson  who  branr 
him  as  one  of  a  group  of  public  men  who  were  "  opt- 
ing in  securities." 

Though  Johnson  was  a  Tory  during  the  war/  ff 
was  so  little  real  republican  sentiment  among  the  cr 
ists  who  controlled  politics  in  Connecticut  that  J 
was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate  immediat .' 
lowing  the  adoption  of  the  new  constitution, 
records  still  in  existence  show  that  while  Johnso  i 
member    of   the    senate    he    was   dealing    furipfcr"  <fm- 
through  his  son  —  in  public  securities,  a  single  u 
tion  sometimes  running  as  high  as  $50,000. 

Robert  Morris,  the  "  financier  of  the  Revolution, 
the  greatest  speculative  plunger,  not  only  in    h--» 
vention,  but  in  the  country.     He  was  interested 
ships  that  traded  with  the  East  and  the  West  In 
had  money  invested  in  iron  works  and  other  i:-^  terrain 
he  bought  and  sold  land  in  all  parts  of  the  count-v/^r   'T' 
thousands  of  acres;  he  was  interested  in  every'ki 
government  security  that  was  in  circulation  during 
lifetime;  and  he  had  almost  every  kind  of  human  „ 
perience  that  could  come  to  a  great  speculator,  inr'nd- 
ing  friendship  with  the  President  of  the  United  States 
and  incarceration  in  prison  for  debt.     At  the  height!  6 
his  career,  when  the  national  capital  was  removed  tarib 
New  York  to  Philadelphia,  Morris  vacated  his  handsets 
residence  in  Market  Street  and  turned  it  over  to  Prcoii 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "    25 

dent  Washington.     Morris  was  so  daring  a  speculator 

-ait  he  would  perhaps  have  been  the  first  American  mil- 

-<inaire  if,  a  few  years  later,  he  had  not  overreached 

>mself,  lost  his  fortune,  and  landed  in  a  debtor's  cell. 

oMorris  was  not  "  crooked  "  in  the  sense  in  which  the 

UK!  was  understood  in  his  day  by  men  of  his  class. 

we  should  consider  him  crooked  if  he  were  living 

sy  and  doing  the  same  things.     With  his  pockets 

:of  soldiers'  scrip  and  public  securities  that  he  had 

•.it  at  bargain  counter  prices,  Morris  used  to  arise 

!j  constitutional  convention  and  fervently  dwell  upon 

-cessity  of  so  drafting  the  Constitution  that  pub- 

:t  would  be  restored.     Of  course,  he  was  quite 

-lot  in  desiring  that  the  public  credit  should  be  re- 

ut  with  his  pockets  full  of  paper  that  would  be 

r!par  by  such  restoration  we  cannot  quite  regard 

-  a  disinterested  citizen.     A  man  so  upholstered 

x       ach  paper  who  should  make  such  a  yawp  in  the 

r  anywhere  else  to-day  would  be  drummed  out 

tkic  life  if  the  facts  ever  became  public. 

srft  'neur  Morris,  also  of  Pennsylvania,  but  no  rela- 

iobert,  was  an  interesting  character.     He  had  a 

>nkg,    a    crippled    arm,    and    a    reputation    for 

.••'v'ateobfthat  was   even   more  crippled  than  his  arm. 

-'lit    7as  a  braggart.     One  day  while  a  group  of  dele- 

iwei*1  gathered  outside  of  Independence  Hall,  Mor- 

<>11  tii  bragging  about  his  personal  bravery.     As  he 

.^  oached  his  peroration,  during  which  he  said  he  was 

afrnid  of  no  man  on  earth,  Alexander  Hamilton  came 

'  Aig.     Hamilton  expressed  a  doubt  that  Morris  was  so 

tageous  as  he  pretended  to  be  and  offered  to  wager 

u.cr  with  wine  for  the  whole  company  that  Morris 

vt  'uld  not  jdare  to  approach  George  Washington  famil- 

;ttty  and  slap  him  upon  the  shoulder.    Morris  had  gone  so 


26        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

far  with  his  bragging  it  required  more  courage  to  back 
up  than  it  would  to  slap  the  shoulder  of  his  country's 
father ;  so  he  slapped  it  and  won  the  bet.  But  as  Morris 
himself  afterward  confessed,  it  was  the  most  dearly  won 
wager  that  he  ever  won,  though  Washington  only 
"  looked  "  at  him. 

Morris  was  born  into  the  powerful  landed  aristocracy 
that  dominated  New  York,  was  graduated  at  King's 
College  and  began  the  practice  of  law.  Like  his  name- 
sake, Robert,  his  money  was  invested  in  almost  every 
conceivable  sort  of  enterprise.  In  other  words,  he  was 
in  an  excellent  position  to  reap  the  full  benefits  of  pre- 
cisely such  a  constitution  as  he  helped  to  create. 

It  is  a  singular  fact  that  although  Gouverneur  Morris 
actually  wrote  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the 
delegates  to  the  convention  had  little  or  no  confidence  in 
him.  They  admired  him  for  his  biting  wit  and  extraor- 
dinary command  of  language,  but  they  thoroughly  dis- 
trusted him.  Morris  was  so  shifting  and  slippery  that 
people  were  compelled  to  distrust  him.  So  prejudiced 
did  the  members  of  the  convention  become  against  him 
that,  toward  the  last,  if  Morris  had  a  suggestion  to  offer, 
he  usually  induced  some  one  else  to  offer  it  for  him,  his 
theory  being  that  his  suggestion  would  be  more  likely  of 
adoption  if  it  were  not  known  that  he  was  the  father 
of  it.  James  Madison  himself  testified  to  that  fact. 
Morris  was  chosen  to  take  the  resolutions  drafted  by 
the  convention  and  whip  them  into  the  phraseology  of  a 
constitution  only  because  of  his  acknowledged  superiority 
in  the  use  of  the  English  language. 

Pierce  Butler,  of  South  Carolina,  also  liked  to  brag, 
but  unlike  Morris  he  boasted  not  of  his  courage,  but  of 
his  ancestry.  Butler,  who  was  born  in  Ireland,  chanced 
to  be  descended  from  the  Duke  of  Ormond  "  and  was 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "         27 

inordinately  vain  of  it."  According  to  Coleman's  "  The 
Constitution  and  Its  Framers,"  Butler's  pride  in  his  an- 
cestry subjected  him  to  no  little  ridicule.  His  misfor- 
tune was,  of  course,  that  he  was  born  not  only  to  the 
baubles  of  aristocracy,  but  to  great  wealth.  After  he 
had  played  soldier  as  long  as  he  cared  to,  he  sold  his 
commission  in  the  British  army  and  settled  in  South 
Carolina.  One  of  his  first  acts  thereafter  was  to  annex 
himself  to  one  of  the  aristocratic  families  of  his  adopted 
State  by  marrying  the  daughter  of  Colonel  Middleton. 
Butler  was  a  large  slave  holder,  a  lawyer  and  a  politician. 
As  a  slave  holder  he  lived  a  life  of  luxury  without 
productive  labor.  As  a  lawyer  he  woke  up  the  country- 
side with  his  oratory.  As  a  politician  he  broke  into  the 
United  States  Senate,  not  once  but  twice.  But  as  a  rep- 
resentative of  the  working  class  who  comprised  the  bulk 
of  the  country's  population  —  Butler  never  knew  there 
was  a  working  class  except  when  he  wanted  to  bleed  it. 

Daniel  Carroll  of  Maryland  also  made  patriotism 
pay.  Carroll  not  only  had  a  large  fortune,  but  he  had 
it  invested  in  so  many  directions  that  if  anybody  were 
to  make  money  anywhere  he  was  tolerably  sure  to  get 
in  on  the  pickings.  As  a  holder  of  many  public  securi- 
ties that  he  had  bought  for  a  few  cents  on  the  dollar,  he 
frequently  impressed  upon  the  constitutional  convention, 
the  necessity  of  "restoring  the  public  honor" — and 
bringing  his  scrip  and  bonds  to  par.  Having  funds  in- 
vested in  manufactures,  he  joined  others  in  petitioning 
the  first  congress  to  provide  a  protective  tariff.  He  was 
a  member  of  congress  at  the  time,  but  he  nevertheless 
joined  in  the  petition. 

Carroll's  greatest  achievement,  however,  came  at  the 
time  when,  as  a  member  of  congress,  he  helped  locate 
the  capitol  at  Washington  "on  land  which  he  owned." 


28        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

Many  a  patriot  pays  for  his  patriotism  with  his  lifeblood, 
but  Daniel  Carroll  of  Maryland  knew  a  better  way.  He . 
made  his  patriotism  pay  him.  He  never  got  on  the  fir- 
ing line,  but  he  was  always  down  on  the  money  line. 
Many  an  old  Hoosier  would  have  farmed  that  "  Dud- 
dleston  estate  "  which  formed  part  of  the  city  of  Wash- 
ington —  and  gone  broke  at  it.  Carroll  farmed  the  gov- 
ernment and  measurably  increased  his  large  fortune. 
He  died  in  Washington  in  1829  without  a  word  of  com- 
plaint against  the  world  or  anybody  in  it,  since  the  world 
had  given  him  everything  he  desired  from  "  a  classical 
education"  to  great  honors  and  great  wealth. 

James  McHenry,  of  Maryland,  early  in  life  was  also 
polished  off  with  a  classical  education.  Daniel  Mc- 
Henry, the  father  of  our  hero,  had  prospered  wonder- 
fully as  a  merchant,  but  James  studied  medicine  and  be- 
came an  army  surgeon  during  the  Revolution.  The  ex- 
acting duties  of  the  profession  appear  to  have  wearied 
him,  however,  for  a  little  later  we  find  him  acting  as  sec- 
retary, first  to  Washington  and  then  to  Lafayette.  The 
war  over,  James  joined  his  brother  John  in  buying  town 
property  —  always  a  fine  occupation,  since  workingmen 
must  live  somewhere  and  to  settle  in  their  path  with  a 
warranty  deed  is  often  sufficient  to  cause  them  to  pay 
one  to  get  out  of  the  way.  James  and  John  prospered 
amazingly  when  an  event  occurred  that  was  exceedingly 
bad  for  John,  but  exceedingly  good  for  James.  John 
died  and  left  James  all  his  property. 

After  that  James  never  had  to  worry  concerning  the 
source  of  his  next  meal.  "  A  casual  letter  of  August 
4,  1792,"  says  Professor  Beard,  "  shows  that  one  Dickin- 
son owed  him  an  amount  secured  by  a  bond  for  $25,- 
ooo."  With  a  number  of  other  palm-itching  gentlemen 
he  organized  the  Insurance  Company  of  North  America, 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "    29 

and  also  bought  public  securities  when  they  were  cheap. 
Throughout  the  constitutional  convention  he  was  a  con- 
stant advocate  of  anything  that  would  bring  his  securi- 
ties to  par,  and  as  soon  as  the  government  was  estab- 
lished he  joined  those  who  petitioned  the  first  congress 
to  place  a  heavy  protective  tariff  upon  imports.  In  the 
higher  reaches  of  statesmanship  James  may  not  have 
been  a  genius,  but  to  this  day  nobody  has  contended  that 
he  did  not  know  upon  which  side  his  bread  was  buttered* 
McHenry,  too,  knew  how  to  make  patriotism  pay. 

We  now  come  to  the  Pinckneys  of  South  Carolina  — 
Charles  and  Charles  Cotesworth.  Mere  Charles  was  the 
cousin  of  Charles  Cotesworth.  Charles,  without  a  mid- 
dle name,  was  only  twenty-nine  years  of  age  at  the  time 
of  his  election  to  the  constitutional  convention,  and  the 
opportunity  to.  sit  in  the  same  room  with  gentlemen  like 
George  Washington,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Alexander 
Hamilton  and  others  seems  to  have  gone  to  his  head. 
"  Rather  superficial,  but  brilliant,"  says  Professor  Far- 
rand,  "  with  a  high  opinion  of  his  own  ability  and  with 
extraordinary  conversational  powers  it  is  little  wonder 
that  Pinckney  pushed  himself  forward,  and  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  he  seems  occasionally  to  have  been  sharply 
snubbed  by  his  elders." 

Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  "  after  receiving  a  fine 
classical  education  in  England,"  began  the  practice  of 
law  in  America  and  did  well  at  it.  That  is  to  say,  he 
made  it  pay.  He  did  not  prosecute  damage  suits  for 
injured  workingmen,  but  engaged  in  the  vastly  more 
genteel  and  lucrative  employment  of  serving  the  landed 
gentry. 

During  the  Revolution  he  stopped  long  enough  to  be- 
come a  fine  soldier  whose  bravery  was  exceeded  by  that 
of  no  other,  but  with  the  coming  of  peace  the  chirp  of 


30        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

the  dollar  again  caught  his  ear.  He  became  "a  con- 
siderable landholder  in  the  city  of  Charleston " ;  had 
"  numerous  tenants  living  on  his  property,"  owned 
forty-five  slaves,  and  during  the  heated  term  annually 
sought  repose  upon  his  magnificent  country  estate  at 
Pinckney  Island.  Charles  Cotesworth,  like  Charles 
Pinckney,  was  plentifully  provided  with  public  paper 
bought  low  for  a  rise,  and  therefore,  like  his  cousin, 
served  himself  and  his  clients  by  acting  as  wet-nurse  to 
the  "  public  honor." 

George  Mason,  of  Virginia,  was  another  gentleman 
who  would  have  had  a  most  difficult  time  to  get  the 
workingman's  point  of  view  of  anything.  Mason  had 
barely  reached  manhood  when  his  father  died  and  left 
him  more  land  and  slaves  than  he  well  knew  what  to  do 
with.  But  like  most  gentlemen  who  inherit  more  money 
than  they  need,  Mason  also  inherited  an  itching  for  more 
money. 

First,  he  speculated  in  western  lands  and  gained  the 
equivalent  of  chests  of  gold.  Then  he  speculated  in 
matrimony  and  brought  home  both  the  daughter  of  a 
Maryland  merchant  and  an  estate  almost  as  large  as  his 
own.  In  1749,  therefore,  he  was  in  a  most  excellent 
position  to  join  the  Ohio  Company  in  a  colossal  attempt 
to  gain  possession  of  land.  How  successful  these  gen- 
tlemen were  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  they  soon 
obtained  a  grant  of  "  six  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land, 
lying  mostly  west  of  the  mountains  and  south  of  the 
Ohio."  Did  you  notice  the  word  "  grant "  ?  When  a 
poor  old  farmer  gets  hold  of  forty  acres  he  buys  it,  but 
when  grafters  get  hold  of  600,000  acres  it  is  always 
granted  to  them. 

Mason's  luck  having  started,  could  not  be  stopped. 
In  1754  we  find  him  in  the  act  of  securing  a  "patent" 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "    31 

on  fifteen  hundred  acres  of  land  in  Northern  Neck,  Va. 
Remember  that  name  —  Northern  Neck.  It  was  this 
tract  that  largely  entered  into  Mason's  deliberations 
when  he  decided  to  turn  against  the  constitution  that 
he  had  helped  to  make.  When  it  dawned  upon  Mason 
that  the  convention  was  about  to  deposit  a  good  deal  of 
power  in  the  federal  supreme  court  it  also  dawned  upon 
him  that  the  court  might  make  him  pay  more  taxes  than 
he  cared  to  pay. 

"  I  am  personally  endangered,"  he  said,  "  as  an  in- 
habitant of  Northern  Neck.  The  people  of  that  part 
will  be  obliged,  by  the  operation  of  this  power,  to  pay  the 
quit  rent  of  their  lands.  *  *  *  How  will  gentlemen  like 
to  pay  an  additional  tax  on  lands  in  the  Northern 
Neck?" 

Upon  what  small  things  do  great  events  sometimes 
turn?  If  Mason  had  not  "patented"  that  fifteen  hun- 
dred acre  tract  in  Northern  Neck  he  would  have  favored 
the  Constitution.  If  his  taxes  had  been  in  such  shape 
that  no  court  could  make  him  pay  more,  he  still  might 
have  favored  the  Constitution.  If  all  the  delegates  had 
owned  land  in  Northern  Neck,  perhaps  we  should  never 
have  had  a  constitution.  Upon  such  trivialities  do  our 
sacred  liberties  depend. 

But  from  his  point  of  view,  Mason  knew  his  business. 
When  he  died  in  1792  "  he  devised  to  his  sons  alone  some 
fifteen  thousand  acres,  the  greater  part  of  his  own  ac- 
quisition, of  the  very  best  land  in  the  Potomac  region. 
Most  of  these  estates  were  well  improved,  with  large 
and  comfortable  mansions  and  all  necessary  outbuild- 
ings. But  he  left  to  be  divided  among  his  children  what 
was  solely  acquired  by  himself:  sixty  thousand  of  among 
the  finest  acres  in  Kentucky,  some  three  hundred  slaves, 
more  than  $50,000  worth  of  other  personal  property,  and 


32        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

at  least  $30,000  of  debts  due  on  his  books,  while  his  own 
indebtedness  was  absolutely  nothing." 

John  Dickinson,  of  Delaware,  never  knew  what  it 
meant  to  trudge  off  to  a  factory  with  his  dinner  pail  or 
to  take  his  place  on  the  picket  line  during  a  strike. 
Dickinson's  family  belonged  to  the  landed  aristocracy  of 
the  south.  He  was  educated  in  England  and  returned 
to  America  to  practice  law,  settling  in  Philadelphia. 
Like  so  many  others  of  our  patriot  forefathers,  he  early 
saw  the  advantage  of  marrying  an  heiress  and  proceeded 
at  once  to  become  the  husband  of  Mary  Norris,  whose 
family  estate,  Fairhill,  was  one  of  the  most  magnificent 
country-seats  of  the  day. 

"This  house,"  says  Simpson  in  "Eminent  Philadel- 
phians,"  "  was  in  its  day  a  very  grand  mansion  and  a 
place  of  great  celebrity,  with  a  large  front  of  sixty  feet. 
It  was  surrounded  by  forest  and  evergreen  trees  of  ma- 
jestic growth  and  well-arranged  shrubbery.  It  com- 
manded a  beautiful  prospect  of  the  city,  with  a  distant 
view  of  the  Delaware.  The  mansion  was  two  stories 
high  and  most  substantially  built,  with  a  very  wide  hall 
running  through  the  center.  The  library  was  papered, 
but  the  parlors  and  hall  were  wainscotted  with  oak  and 
red  cedar,  unpainted,  but  polished  with  wax  and  kept 
bright  by  constant  rubbing.  The  carriageway  was 
finely  graduated  and  wound  through  an  extensive  lawn 
from  its  approach  on  the  Germantown  road  which  was 
bordered  with  shrubbery.  The  pleasure  grounds,  lawn, 
greenhouse  and  gardens,  fish-ponds  and  walks  embraced 
a  large  area  of  several  acres  in  extent." 

Dickinson  was  chairman  of  the  committee  of  the  Con- 
tinental Congress  that  framed  the  articles  of  confedera- 
tion. Professor  Farrand  describes  him  as  "  able, 
scholarly  and  sincere,  but  nervous,  sensitive  and  cautious 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "    33 

to  the  verge  of  timidity."  .  He  was  so  cautious  when  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  awaiting  signatures 
that  he  refused  to  sign  it.  He  never  quite  recovered 
from  the  blow  that  this  refusal  gave  to  his  prestige.  He 
was  elected  to  congress  and  other  high  offices,  but  he 
"  never  succeeded  in  completely  regaining  public  confi- 
dence —  a  shadow  of  mistrust  was  always  visible." 

Oliver  Ellsworth,  of  Connecticut,  although  the  son  of 
a  farmer,  was  apparently  vaccinated  against  agriculture 
early  in  life.  Ellsworth's  father  was  one  of  those  Con- 
necticut Yankees  who  could  start  with  a  pair  of  suspend- 
ers and,  before  sunset,  trade  them  for  a  complete  ward- 
robe. The  old  gentleman  began  with  only  $500,  but  by 
the  time  his  son  was  old  enough  to  absorb  education  he 
was  sent  first  to  Yale  and  then  to  Princeton.  The  father 
intended  the  lad  for  the  ministry,  but  Oliver  put  aside  the 
Bible  for  Blackstone  and  became  a  lawyer.  In  the  early 
days  of  his  practice  he  had  nothing  to  do,  so  he  married 
the  daughter  of  William  Wolcott,  a  rich  man  and  "  gen- 
tleman "  of  East  Windsor.  The  qualities  that  con- 
tributed to  success  in  those  days  were  not  peculiar,  if  -we 
may  believe  a  gentleman  named  Brown  who  became  Ells- 
worth's biographer.  Ellsworth,  said  Brown,  having 
great  purpose  and  persistency  but  little  imagination,  rose 
rapidly  to  wealth  and  power. 

"  It  is  doubtful,"  Brown  continued,  "  if  in  the  entire 
history  of  the  Connecticut  bar  any  other  lawyer  has  ever 
in  so  short  a  time  accumulated  so  great  a  practice. 
Measured  either  by  the  amount  of  his  business  or  by  his 
earnings,  it  was  unrivaled  in  his  own  day  and  unex- 
ampled in  the  history  of  the  colony.  Naturally  shrewd, 
and  with  nothing  of  the  spendthrift  in  his  nature,  he 
quickly  earned  a  competence,  and  by  good  management 
he  increased  it  to  a  fortune  which,  for  the  times  and  the 


34        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

country,  was  quite  uncommonly  large.  From  a  few 
documents  still  in  existence  it  is  clear  that  he  became 
something  of  a  capitalist  and  investor.  He  bought  lands 
and  houses  and  loaned  money  out  at  interest.  He  was  a 
stockholder  in  the  Hartford  bank,  and  one  of  the  original 
subscribers  to  the  stock  of  the  old  Hartford  broadcloth 
mill." 

Nor  was  Ellsworth  too  busy  to  note  the  opportunity  to 
make  money  by  investing  in  the  depreciated  paper  of  his 
country.  Professor  Beard  found  the  old  gentleman's 
ink-tracks  on  some  of  the  ancient  papers  that  he  un- 
earthed from  the  vaults  in  the  Treasury  Department. 

"  With  that  natural  shrewdness  and  economy  which 
his  latest  biographer  attributed  to  him,"  says  Professor 
Beard,  "  Ellsworth  accumulated  a  by  no  means  negligible 
amount  in  public  securities  from  which  he  profited  by 
the  rise  of  credit  that  accompanied  the  establishment  of 
the  new  government.  He  was  among  the  first  citizens 
of  Connecticut  to  have  his  paper  funded  into  the  new 
government  securities,  for  he  appears  in  December, 
1791,  with  $1,330.50  in  deferred  sixes,  $2,660.98  in 
funded  sixes  and  $1,995.75  m  three  per  cents.  His 
wife,  Abigail,  and  other  members  of  her  family,  the 
Wolcotts,  had  also  invested  in  securities." 

Thomas  Fitzsimons,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  one  of  the 
largest  merchants  and  boldest  speculators  of  his  day. 
As  a  merchant  he  might  have  succeeded.  As  a  specu- 
lator he  might  have  succeeded.  As  a  combined  merchant 
and  speculator  he  went  down  with  a  crash.  He  had 
strong  family  connections  to  hold  him  up.  His  father- 
in-law,  Robert  Meade,  was  one  of  the  rich  men  of  Phila- 
delphia. His  brother-in-law  was  "  one  of  the  prominent 
merchants  and  shipowners  of  the  city." 

Fitzsimons  himself  was  a  director  of  the  Bank  of 


FACTS  ABOUT  THE  "  FATHERS  "    35 

North  America  and  President  of  the  Insurance  Com- 
pany of  North  America.  But  he  became  tangled  up 
with  the  speculations  of  Robert  Morris  and,  when  Mor- 
ris failed,  Fitzsimons  lost  a  good  deal  of  his  fortune. 

Fitzsimons  was  accused  by  his  contemporaries  of 
speculating  heavily  in  the  securities  of  the  country. 
The  speaker  of  the  house  of  representatives  in  which  he 
served  is  quoted  by  Maclay,  a  historian,  as  saying  that 
in  his  opinion  "  Mr.  Fitzsimons  was  concerned  in  this 
business  (of  speculating)  as  well  as  Mr.  Morris,  and 
that  they  stayed  away  (from  congress)  for  the  double 
purpose  of  pursuing  their  speculation  and  remaining  un- 
suspected." 

Professor  Beard  says  that  Maclay's  version  was  prob- 
ably correct,  "  for  in  1791  Fitzsimons'  agent,  Michael 
Conner,  presented  for  him  certificates  of  1778  to  the 
amount  of  $12,000  nominal  value  which  he  had  evidently 
bought  up." 

The  extent  to  which  Fitzsimons  and  Morris  plunged 
may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  in  1795  they  put  on 
sale  in  London  "  about  360,000  acres  of  land  situated 
in  Georgia." 


CHAPTER  III 

.WASHINGTON   AND   HIS   GROUP 

WASHINGTON  had  not  paid  his  taxes  for  two 
years  when  he  went  as  a  delegate  to  attend  the 
convention  that  made  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.1  Ford's  edition  of  "The  Federalist"  says  the 
"  Father  of  his  Country  "  was  temporarily  embarrassed, 
not  by  the  failure  of  his  crops,  but  by  his  inability  to 
sell  what  he  had  raised.  Whatever  the  reason,  Wash- 
ington had  a  great  deal  of  property  upon  which  to  pay 
taxes.  In  the  one  sense  that  he  was  the  richest  man 
in  America,  he  was  the  Rockefeller  of  his  day.  The 
schedule  of  property  attached  to  his  will  footed  up  $530,- 
ooo.  In  Virginia  alone  he  owned  "  more  than  35,000 
acres,'*  valued  at  $200,000;  "in  Maryland,  1,119  acres, 
at  $9,828;  in  Pennsylvania,  234  acres,  at  $1,404;  in 
New  York,  about  1,000  acres,  at  $6,000;  in  the  North- 
west Territory,  3,051  acres,  at  $15,255;  in  Kentucky, 
5,000  acres,  at  $10,000;  property  in  Washington  at  $19,- 
132;  in  Alexandria,  at  $4,000;  in  Winchester,  at  $400; 
at  Bath,  $800;  in  government  securities,  $6,246;  shares 
in  the  Potomac  Company,  $10,666;  shares  in  the  James 
River  Company,  $500;  stock  in  the  Bank  of  Columbia, 
$6,800;  stock  in  the  Bank  of  Alexandria,  $1,000;  live- 

1  The  statements  of  historic  fact  made  in  this  chapter  are,  unless 
specifically  attributed  to  other  sources,  taken  from  Professor  Beard's 
"An  Economic  Interpretation  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,"  or  from  Professor  Farrand's  "  The  Framing  of  the  Consti- 
tution," 

36 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP         37 

stock,  $15,653.  His  slaves  were  to  be  emancipated  on 
the  death  of  his  wife." 

"  Washington  possessed,"  says  Professor  Beard,  "  in 
addition  to  his  great  estate  upon  the  Potomac,  a  large 
amount  of  fluid  capital  which  he  judiciously  invested  in 
western  lands,  from  which  he  could  reasonably  expect  a 
large  appreciation  with  the  establishment  of  stable  gov- 
ernment and  the  advance  of  the  frontier." 

Washington,  however,  unlike  some  of  the  gentlemen 
who  sat  with  him  in  the  constitutional  convention,  was 
no  grafter.  He  did  not  speculate  upon  the  misfortunes 
of  the  government.  He  did  not  buy  scrip  at  five  or  ten 
cents  on  the  dollar.  He  never  tried  to  use  public  office 
for  private  profit.  Yet,  much  that  Washington  did  as 
a  public  man  redounded  to  his  private  profit.  It  was 
inevitable  that  it  should  thus  redound.  Washington  was 
the  richest  man  of  his  day.  Whatever  he  did  to  help 
the  business  interests  of  the  country  helped  him  more 
than  anybody  else  because  he  owned  more  property  than 
anybody  else.  Washington  could  not  help  other  busi- 
ness men  without  helping  himself  more  than  he  helped 
any  of  the  others.  Nor  could  the  working  class  have 
gained  any  advantage  over  the  capitalist  class  without 
hurting  Washington  more  than  any  one  else.  Wash- 
ington's economic  interests  therefore  compelled  him  to 
stand  with  his  class  and  against  the  working  class. 

Washington  did  so  stand.  We  of  this  age  look  upon 
him  as  a  great  popular  advocate  for  two  reasons:  first, 
because  we  do  not  know  much  about  him,  second,  be- 
cause Washington  was  so  much  better  than  some  of 
those  with  whom  he  was  associated.  Washington  had 
not  much  faith  in  the  republican  principle  of  govern- 
ment. He  was  by  no  means  certain  that  the  people 
would  be  able  to  rule  themselves.  He  gladly  signed  a 


38        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

constitution  that  cut  the  people  off  almost  with  no  power. 
But  he  was  determined  that  the  people  should  be  given 
an  opportunity  to  demonstrate  whether  they  were  com- 
petent to  use  the  little  power  that  he  and  others  gave 
them.  In  other  words,  he  did  all  that  he  could  to  bring 
about  an  honest  trial  of  the  new  constitution. 

We  still  feel  grateful  to  Washington  for  that.  It  was 
not  much,  but  it  was  much  more  than  many  others  did. 
It  was  much  more  than  Alexander  Hamilton  did. 
Washington  was  willing  to  see  us  deprived  of  the  right 
to  elect  the  President.  Washington  was  willing  to  see 
us  deprived  of  the  right  to  elect  United  States  Senators. 
But  Hamilton  wanted  the  President,  after  a  select  little 
group  had  elected  him,  to  serve  for  life.  Hamilton 
wanted  United  States  Senators,  after  select  little  groups 
had  elected  them,  to  serve  for  life.  Hamilton  wanted 
to  give  the  President  power  to  appoint  all  governors  of 
States.  And  Hamilton  wanted  the  President  and  the 
governors  of  States  to  have  the  power  of  absolute  veto 
over  Congress  and  the  state  legislatures.  That  we  still 
honor  the  name  of  Hamilton  is  because,  to  this  day,  we 
know  almost  nothing  of  Hamilton.  He  was  a  brilliant 
man,  but  he  was  almost  the  last  man  who  should  have 
found  favor  in  a  republic.  Socially,  he  was  an  aristo- 
crat. Politically,  he  was  a  monarchist. 

"  Hamilton  was  not  only  a  monarchist,"  said  Thomas 
Jefferson,1  "but  for  a  monarchy  bottomed  on  corrup- 
tion. In  proof  of  this,  I  will  relate  an  anecdote,  for 
the  truth  of  which,  I  attest  the  God  who  made  me.  Be- 
fore the  President  set  out  on  his  southern  tour  in  April, 
1791,  he  addressed  a  letter  of  the  fourth  of  that  month, 
from  Mount  Vernon  to  the  Secretaries  of  State,  Treas- 
ury and  War,  desiring  that  if  any  serious  and  important 

i  Anas,  1791.    C.  ix.  96 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP          39 

cases  should  arise  during  his  absence  they  would  con- 
sult and  act  on  them.  And  he  requested  that  the  Vice- 
President  should  also  be  consulted.  This  was  the  only 
occasion  when  that  officer  was  ever  invited  to  take  part 
in  a  cabinet  question. 

"  Some  occasions  for  consultation  arising,  I  invited 
these  gentlemen  (and  the  attorney-general  as  well,  if 
I  remember)  to  dine  with  me  in  order  to  confer  on  the 
subject.  After  the  cloth  was  removed  and  our  ques- 
tion agreed  and  dismissed,  conversation  began  on  other 
matters,  and  by  some  circumstance  was  led  to  the  Brit- 
ish constitution  on  which  Mr.  Adams  observed :  '  Purge 
it  of  its  corruption  and  give  to  its  popular  branch  equal- 
ity of  representation,  and  it  would  be  the  most  perfect 
constitution  ever  devised  by  the  wit  of  man/  Hamilton 
paused  and  said :  *  Purge  it  of  its  corruption  and  give 
to  its  popular  branch  equality  of  representation  and  it 
would  become  an  impracticable  government ;  as  it  stands 
at  present,  with  all  its  supposed  defects,  it  is  the  most 
perfect  government  which  ever  existed.' ' 

Hamilton  was  attacked  during  his  lifetime  as  almost 
no  other  American  was  ever  attacked.  He  was  sus- 
pected of  being  a  defaulter.  He  was  accused  of  being 
a  grafter.  It  is  tolerably  certain  that  he  was  not  a  de- 
faulter. It  is  improbable  that  he  was  even  a  grafter. 
But  Hamilton  was  so  adroit  a  man  that  it  was  and  still 
is  difficult  to  tell  what  he  was.  When  beset  by  enemies, 
the  flea  could  not  outdo  him  in  agility.  No  matter  how 
dark  the  outlook,  he  always  emerged  triumphantly.  He 
sometimes  lost  part  of  his  baggage,  but  he  always  got 
through  himself.  His  encounter  with  James  Reynolds 
illustrates  his  capacity  for  hair-breadth  escapes.  Rey- 
nolds and  Hamilton,  who  had  been  old  friends,  became 
estranged.  Reynolds  said  that  he  and  Hamilton  had 


40        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

speculated  in  government  bonds  while  Hamilton  was  sec- 
retary of  the  treasury.  The  story  came  to  the  ears  of 
the  speaker  of  the  house  of  representatives.  The 
speaker  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  investigate.  In  company 
with  two  other  men  he  visited  Reynolds.  Reynolds  cor- 
roborated the  entire  matter.  Mrs.  Reynolds  added  to 
the  corroboration.  The  case  against  Hamilton  seemed 
so  plain  that  the  speaker  felt  justified  in  confronting 
Hamilton  and  demanding  an  explanation.  Hamilton 
cheerfully  explained.  He  said  that  he  had  once  had  "  an 
unhappy  amour  with  Mrs.  Reynolds,"  and  that  she  and 
her  husband  cooked  up  the  story  against  him  to  get  even. 
The  excuse  was  not  new  even  in  Hamilton's  day.  Many 
gentlemen  had  tried  it  without  success.  But  Hamilton 
made  it  work.  The  speaker  and  his  friends  retired.  Mr. 
Hamilton  had  explained !  That  was  enough. 

The  complexity  of  Hamilton  may  well  be  illustrated 
by  another  story.  As  secretary  of  the  treasury  he  pos- 
sessed information  with  regard  to  the  probable  future 
prices  of  government  bonds.  Any  speculator  who  had 
this  information  could,  of  course,  make  money  with  it. 
Hamilton's  wife's  brother  was  a  speculator.  Ham- 
ilton wrote  to  his  father-in-law,  General  Schuyler, 
asking  him  not  to  let  his  son  speculate.  The  old  gen- 
tleman appears  to  have  acted  upon  the  request.  The  son 
did  not  speculate.  But  the  old  general  himself  gambled 
in  public  securities  like  a  sheep  herder  at  a  faro  table. 
Professor  Beard  found  records  in  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment showing  that  during  three  months,  in  1791,  Gen- 
eral Schuyler  speculated  to  the  extent  of  more  than 
$65,000. 

But  that  is  not  all.  Hamilton  once  told  a  man  who 
wanted  a  tip  on  bond  prices  that  the  secretary  of  the 
treasury  should  be  "  like  Csesar's  wife."  That  sounded 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP          41 

well.  But  a  little  later  we  find  Mr.  Hamilton  industri- 
ously giving,  buying  and  selling  orders  to  brokers  on 
behalf  of  his  sister's  husband,  J.  B.  Church.  Those 
orders,  in  Hamilton's  handwriting,  are  still  in  existence. 
They  form  part  of  the  Hamilton  collection  of  manu- 
scripts in  the  Library  of  Congress.  They  represent  the 
basis  of  a  fortune  which  came  as  the  result  of  the  specu- 
lation. On  the  face  of  the  letters,  all  of  the  fortune 
went  to  Church.  Church  might  have  divided  with  Ham- 
ilton, but  there  is  no  proof  that  he  did  so.  It  is  upon 
the  assumption  that  Church  did  not  divide  that  Hamil- 
ton is  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  grafting.  In  other 
words,  Hamilton  is  given  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  He 
needs  it.  He  was  found  close  to  the  border  line  of 
graft.  He  was  caught  using  a  high  public  office  to 
feather  the  nest  of  a  relative.  He  is  held  blameless  only 
because  when  he  died  there  were  few  feathers  in  his  own 
nest.  But  for  the  sake  of  his  reputation,  it  is  regrettable 
that  he  once  .felt  moved  to  make  a  remark  about 
"  Caesar's  wife."  Obviously,  the  remark  was  hypocrit- 
ical. 

James  Madison  was  perhaps  the  most  influential  man 
in  the  constitutional  convention.  He  was  born  to  great 
landed  wealth,  was  graduated  at  Princeton  and  drilled 
in  the  principles  of  law.  But  the  law  did  not  appeal  to 
him,  nor  did  business.  Only  politics  appealed  to  him. 
But  the  opportunity  to  make  money  out  of  politics  did 
not  appeal  to  him.  Other  patriotic  gentlemen  came  to 
the  convention  heavily  laden  with  public  paper  bought 
at  pawn  broker  prices.  Madison  had  none.  When  the 
other  patriots  flocked  to  the  capital  to  take  advantage 
of  Hamilton's  plan  for  buying  up  the  paper  at  par,  Mad- 
ison was  not  in  the  throng.  But  he  was  near  enough 
to  be  disgusted  at  what  he  saw.  Professor  Beard  says 


42         OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

the  "  scramble  of  politicians  and  speculators  "  did  more 
than  anything  else  "  to  disgust  Madison  with  the  ad- 
ministration party  and  drive  him  into  opposition." 
Madison  himself,  in  writing  to  Jefferson,  in  July,  1791, 
said: 

"  The  subscriptions  (to  the  bank)  are  consequently  a 
mere  scramble  for  so  much  public  plunder,  which  will 
be  engrossed  by  those  already  loaded  with  the  spoils  of 
individuals.  It  pretty  clearly  appears,  also,  in  what  pro- 
portion the  public  debt  lies  in  the  country,  what  sort  of 
hands  hold  it,  and  by  whom  the  people  of  the  United 
States  are  to  be  governed.  Of  all  the  shameful  cir- 
cumstances of  this  business,  it  is  among  the  greatest  to 
see  the  members  of  the  legislature  (congress)  who  were 
most  active  in  pushing  this  job  openly  grasping  its  emolu- 
ments. Schuyler  is  to  be  the  head  of  the  directors,  if 
the  weight  of  the  New  York  subscribers  can  effect  it. 
Nothing  new  is  talked  of  here.  In  fact,  stock-jobbing 
drowns  every  other  subject.  The  coffee  house  is  in  an 
eternal  buzz  with  the  gamblers." 

Madison,  in  short,  was  as  good  a  democrat  as  he  knew 
how  to  be.  He  befriended  the  people  as  much  as  he 
knew  how  to  befriend  them.  But  Madison  lived  at  a 
time  when  the  men  who  considered  themselves  the  wisest 
had  almost  no  faith  in  the  capacity  of  the  people  to  rule 
themselves.  Madison  believed  the  people  were  not  ca- 
pable of  ruling  themselves.  Madison  believed  a  group 
of  "  superior "  men  should  be  set  apart  to  elect  the 
President.  Madison  believed  state  legislatures  should 
elect  United  States  senators.  Madison  believed  the  peo- 
ple should  be  represented  only  in  the  house  of  repre- 
sentatives, and  that  the  house  should  not  be  permitted  to 
do  anything  if  either  the  senate  or  the  President  should 
object.  In  other  words,  while  Madison  represented  the 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP         43 

people  as  well  as  he  knew  how  to  represent  them,  he  did 
not  know  how  to  represent  them  very  well.  He  did  not 
come  from  the  people  and  did  not  share  their  longings. 
He  came  from  the  landed  aristocracy,  and  viewed  pub- 
lic questions  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  landed  aris- 
tocrat. 

James  Wilson  of  Pennsylvania  was  one  of  the  great- 
est lawyers  who  sat  in  the  constitutional  convention. 
Washington  thought  so  much  of  him  that  he  afterward 
appointed  him  to  the  supreme  court.  But  Wilson,  who 
was  born  in  Scotland,  was  no  more  a  "  man  of  the  peo- 
ple" than  were  the  other  members  of  the  convention. 
He  received  a  "  fine  classical  education "  in  Scotland, 
emigrated  to  America,  studied  law,  eventually  became 
the  attorney  for  many  of  the  rich  men  of  Pennsylvania, 
received  large  fees,  became  a  director  of  the  Bank  of 
North  America  and  a  stockholder  in  the  Insurance  Com- 
pany of  North  America.  Like  other  patriots  of  his 
time,  Wilson  also  developed  a  weakness  for  land  specula- 
tion. Unfortunately,  he  allied  himself  with  one  of  the 
crookedest  land  corporations  of  his  day  —  the  Georgia 
Land  Company.  He  invested  $125,000  in  this  fraudu- 
lent concern,  and,  in  addition,  owned  750,000  acres  of 
land. 

Wilson's  natural  tendencies  were  probably  toward 
democracy.  Again  and  again,  during  the  convention,  he 
spoke  against  gentlemen  of  the  Alexander  Hamilton  type 
who,  if  they  could  have  done  so,  would  have  given  the 
United  States  a  constitution  under  which  the  people 
would  have  had  no  power.  But  it  is  in  comparison  only 
with  such  men  that  Wilson  seems  to  have  been  a  be- 
liever in  popular  rule.  His  investments  and  his  busi- 
ness relationships  prevented  him  from  becoming  a  real 
democrat.  If  he  were  still  living  and  preaching  the  same 


44        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

political  doctrine  that  he  preached  in  1787,  Mr.  Taft 
would  seem  in  comparison  to  be  a  dangerous  radical. 

Benjamin  Franklin  had  the  workingman's  point  of 
view  when,  as  a  boy,  he  entered  Philadelphia,  munching 
a  loaf  of  bread,  but  when  he  went  to  the  constitutional 
convention  he  was  worth  $150,000.  Franklin  had  great 
investments  in  land,  as  did  Washington  and  many  of  the 
others,  but  he  did  not  speculate  in  public  securities.  In 
his  younger  days,  Franklin  had  given  utterance  to  much 
radical  doctrine,  but  when  the  constitutional  convention 
assembled  he  was  too  old  to  do  much  more  than  pour 
oil  upon  the  troubled  waters,  which  he  often  did.  He 
signed  the  Constitution,  not  because  it  represented  his 
views  of  what. a  constitution  should  be,  but  because  he 
believed  it  was  the  best  instrument  that  could  be  ob- 
tained at  the  time.  In  that,  he  was  undoubtedly  right. 
The  working  class,  politically  unorganized,  was  in  no 
position  to  make  an  aggressive  fight  for  the  kind  of 
government  it  wanted,  while  the  capitalist  class  was  well 
organized. 

Abraham  Baldwin,  of  Georgia,  a  graduate  of  Yale, 
was  a  lawyer  whose  fees  enabled  him  to  buy  public  paper 
when  offered  below  par.  The  constitution  that  he  helped 
to  make  put  money  into  his  pocket. 

Richard  Bassett  of  Delaware  inherited  6,000  acres  of 
land,  added  to  this  through  the  practice  of  law,  became 
one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  the  State  and,  as  one  of 
his  biographer's  says,  "  entertained  lavishly  at  his  three 
homes  in  Wilmington,  Dover,  and  at  Bohemia  Manor." 
Plainly,  he  was  precisely  the  kind  of  man  to  send  to 
the  convention  as  a  representative  of  the  common  peo- 
pie. 

Gunning  Bedford,  of  Delaware,  was  a  landowner, 
lawyer  and  speculator  in  public  securities. 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP          45 

John  Blair  of  Virginia  was  a  college  graduate,  a  law- 
yer and  a  gentleman  who  knew  upon  which  side  his 
bread  was  buttered.  He  went  to  the  convention  loaded 
with  public  securities  that  could  have  been  bought 
cheaply,  and  after  the  formation  of  the  new  government 
cashed  them  in  at  the  treasury  at  100  cents  upon  the 
dollar. 

David  Brearley  of  New  Jersey  came  from  a  family 
of  great  landlords,  graduated  from  Princeton  and  set- 
tled down  to  the  practice  of  law.  He  died  before  Ham- 
ilton's funding  plan  went  into  effect,  but  many  of  his 
relatives  were  found  at  the  public  crib  at  the  proper 
time. 

Jacob  Broome  of  Delaware  was  born  to  wealth  and 
later  became  a  stockholder  in  banks,  cotton  mills  and 
many  other  concerns.  A  few  public  securities  were 
found  upon  his  person  from  time  to  time,  but  he  was 
never  a  heavy  speculator. 

George  Clymer  of  Pennsylvania  was  born  rich  and 
married  richer.  He  was  about  as  much  interested  in 
the  working  class  of  his  day  as.  a  dog  is  interested  in 
a  rabbit  —  and  in  much  the  same  way. 

William  R.  Davie  of  North  Carolina  is  chiefly  re- 
membered because  he  made  enough  practicing  law  so 
that  he  could  afford  to  buy  a  $5,000  colt,  and  because 
he  left  a  large  estate  that  was  the  subject  of  litigation 
before  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  so  late  as  1892. 

William  Few  of  Georgia  overlooked  little.  He 
farmed  and  practiced  law  and  speculated  in  lands,  and 
speculated  in  government  securities  to  such  advantage 
that  he  left  an  estate  valued  at  $100,000.  He  was  also 
connected  with  a  crooked  land  company  —  the  Georgia 
Union. 

Nicholas  Gilman  of  New  Hampshire  bought  soldiers' 


46        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

scrip  from  poor  veterans  for  as  little  as  they  would  take, 
and  added  to  his  investments  by  buying  public  securities 
upon  the  same  principle.  He  came  to  the  convention 
owning  thousands  of  dollars'  worth  of  such  paper  and 
later  added  to  his  holdings.  In  a  single  transaction,  he 
worked  off  upon  the  government  $11,021.95  worth  of 
such  stuff,  receiving  100  cents  upon  the  dollar  therefor. 
Gilman  was  a  good  deal  of  a  nincompoop  in  the  con- 
vention, but  otherwise  he  knew  what  he  was  doing. 

Elbridge  Gerry  of  Massachusetts  was  a  merchant  and 
grafter.  Also  he  was  quite  shameless  about  his  graft- 
ing. The  owner  of  so  many  public  securities  that  the 
amount  annually  due  ,him  as  interest  was  $3,500,  he 
had  the  audacity  to  demand  that  the  Constitution  not 
only  empower  congress  to  pay  the  public  debt  in  full, 
but  to  make  it  obligatory  upon  congress  to  do  so.  Of 
the  gentlemen  who  fleeced  the  old  soldiers  by  buying  up 
their  scrip  at  5  or  10  cents  on  the  dollar,  Madison  quotes 
Gerry  as  follows :  "  As  to  the  stock  jobbers,  he  saw 
no  reason  for  the  censures  thrown  upon  them.  They 
kept  up  the  value  of  the  paper.  Without  them  there 
would  be  no  market."  Gerry  eventually  opposed  the 
Constitution.  He  himself  said  he  opposed  it  because  of 
the  threatened  predominance  of  the  judicial  department, 
but  Oliver  Ellsworth  gave  a  different  reason.  He  said 
Gerry  was  aggrieved  because  the  convention  refused  to 
pledge  the  government  to  redeem  all  of  the  Continental  \ 
currency  at  par  —  a  commodity  of  which  he  charged! 
Gerry  with  having  a  large  supply.  But  Ellsworth  never 
proved  his  charge  and  Gerry  denied  it,  so  there  the  mat- 
ter rests.  As  a  "patriot  father,"  however,  Gerry  was 
a  sight. 

Nathaniel  Gorham  of  Massachusetts  was  a  merchant 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP.         47 

and  land  speculator.  In  1786  he  tried  to  put  through 
a  million-dollar  land  deal,  but  the  gentlemen  who  were 
selling  to  him  proved  the  more  fortunate  negotiators, 
with  the  result  that  Gorham's  fortune  was  considerably 
depleted  when  he  died  in  1796. 

William  C.  Houston,  of  New  Jersey,  was  a  Princeton 
graduate,  a  college  professor,  a  lawyer  and  a  land  specu- 
lator. He  was  of  no  importance  in  the  convention,  and 
died  the  next  year. 

William  Houston  of  Georgia  was  born  and  educated 
in  England.  Little  is  now  known  of  him  except  that 
he  amounted  almost  to  nothing  in  the  convention. 

Jared  Ingersoll  of  Pennsylvania,  after  graduating  at 
Yale,  completed  his  studies  in  England  and  became  a 
lawyer  in  Philadelphia.  As  an  attorney  he  served  the 
richest  men  in  the  State  and  became  wealthy.  So  far 
as  known,  he  was  a  speculator  neither  in  land  nor  in 
public  securities. 

Daniel  of  St.  Thomas  Jenifer,  of  Maryland,  was  a 
planter,  slave-holder  and  owner  of  small  quantities  of 
public  paper. 

Rufus  King  of  Massachusetts  was  the  son  of  the  larg- 
est exporter  of  lumber  in  Maine  who  also  owned  3,000 
acres  of  land.  Rufus  was  educated  at  Harvard,  after 
which  he  married  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  Tory,  who 
removed  to  Connecticut  during  the  Revolutionary  War, 
where  he  remained  in  great  seclusion  until  the  fighting 
was  ended.  Later  the  old  gentleman  bobbed  up  in  New 
York,  where  he  became  president  of  the  chamber  of  com- 
merce. King  was  a  large  holder  of  bank  stock  and  pub- 
lic securities.  The  Constitution  put  the  public  securities 
at  par. 

John  Langdon  of  New  Hampshire  was  a  large  holder 


48        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

of  government  securities.  A  nephew  who  wrote  a 
pamphlet  about  him  described  him  as  "  a  man  that  loved 
money,  at  an  age  when  it  gets  the  upper  hand,  that  was 
prone  to  banking  and  funding,  to  whom  such  at- 
mospheres were  familiar  and  congenial,  that  knew  how 
to  make  it  and  keep  it,  and  felt  no  envy  of  others  that 
did  so,  too."  > 

John  Lansing  of  New  York  was  a  lawyer.  He  op- 
posed the  Constitution,  and  early  left  the  convention  in 
disgust,  never  to  return.  After  the  establishment  of  the 
government,  Lansing  and  most  of  his  relatives  came 
forward  with  cheap  public  securities  to  be  redeemed  at 
par. 

William  Livingston  of  New  Jersey,  the  son  of  a  great 
landlord,  after  graduating  at  Yale,  married  an  heiress 
and  began  the  practice  of  law.  He  was  a  large  owner 
of  public  securities,  but  died  in  1790,  and  his  son  cashed 
in  the  paper  at  the  treasury. 

Luther  Martin  of  Maryland  was  a  Princeton  gradu- 
ate and  a  lawyer.  He  owned  six  slaves  and  some  other 
property,  but  was  never  wealthy.  He  refused  to  sign 
the  Constitution  and  tried  to  prevent  its  ratification. 

James  McClurg  of  Virginia  was  a  physician  and 
banker.  He  did  not  overlook  the  opportunity  to  buy 
public  securities  at  low  rates,  and  on  February  17,  1791, 
appeared  at  the  public  treasury  with  $26,819  worth,  for 
which  he  was  paid  at  par. 

John  Francis  Mercer  of  Maryland  was  a  lawyer, 
slave-holder  and  holder  of  public  securities.  He  broke 
away  from  his  class,  however,  and  opposed  the  Consti- 
tution. 

Thomas  MiffHn  of  Pennsylvania  was  a  college  gradu- 
ate, a  merchant  and  a  manufacturer.  He  was  also  one 
of  the  first  manufacturers  to  yowl  for  a  protective  tariff, 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP.          49 

having  presided  at  a  meeting  for  that  purpose  while  the 
constitutional  convention  was  in  session. 

William  Paterson  of  New  Jersey  was  a  Princeton 
graduate  and  a  lawyer.  Nothing  is  known  of  his  in- 
vestments. William  Pierce  of  Georgia  has  also  passed 
almost  out  of  sight.  Little  is  known  about  his  prop- 
erty interests,  except  that  he  was  a  merchant  in  Sa- 
vannah. 

Edmund  Randolph  was  a  landed  aristocrat  of  Vir- 
ginia. He  practiced  law  with  success,  owned  7,000  acres 
of  land  and  2,000  negroes,  but  was  nevertheless  usually 
hard  up.  He  objected  to  the  court  clause  in  the  Con- 
stitution and  refused  to  sign  it. 

George  Read  of  Delaware,  the  son  of  a  planter,  was 
a  lawyer  and  a  signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence. Unlike  some  of  the  other  patriots,  Read  bought 
public  securities  from  the  government  during  the  early 
days  of  the  war,  at  a  time  when  it  appeared  doubtful 
whether  the  securities  would  ever  be  worth  anything. 

John  Rutledge  of  South  Carolina  was  a  wealthy  law- 
yer and  planter.  When  elected  governor  of  his  State, 
after  the  war,  he  vetoed  a  more  democratic  constitution 
proposed  by  the  legislature,  on  the  ground  that  he  pre- 
ferred "  a  compound  or  mixed  government  to  a  simple 
democracy,  or  one  verging  toward  it.  However  un- 
exceptionable democratic  power  may  appear  at  first  view, 
its  effects  have  been  found  arbitrary,  severe  and  destruc- 
tive." A  fine  "  father,"  indeed. 

Roger  Sherman  of  Connecticut  is  usually  referred  to 
as  "the  shoemaker."  Sherman  was  a  shoemaker  in  the 
same  sense  that  the  late  C.  P.  Huntington,  of  California 
railway  fame,  was  a  clock  peddler.  Sherman  once  made 
shoes  for  a  few  minutes,  Huntington  once  sold  clocks 
for  a  few  minutes.  Each  soon  quit  such  foolishness  and 


50        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

began  to  make  money.  Sherman  did  so  well  that  when 
Hamilton's  funding  scheme  became  effective  Sherman 
cashed  nearly  $8,000  worth  of  public  securities. 

Richard  Dobbs  Spaight  of  North  Carolina  owned  a 
large  plantation  and  seventy-one  slaves.  He  owned  no 
public  securities  worth  mentioning. 

Caleb  Strong  of  Massachusetts  was  a  Harvard  gradu- 
ate and  a  lawyer.  Little  is  known  of  his  economic  in- 
terests except  that  he  bought  about  $16,000  worth  of 
public  securities  before  the  Constitution  was  drafted,  and 
as  soon  thereafter  as  possible,  converted  them  into  the 
securities  of  the  new  government  at  par. 

Hugh  Williamson  of  North  Carolina  was  a  college 
graduate,  a  physician,  a  merchant,  a  speculator  in  gov- 
ernment securities  and  a  speculator  in  lands.  In  a  let- 
ter to  Hamilton,  Williamson  said  that  he  had  "  the  small- 
est of  two  large  trunks  "  full  of  bonds.  On  June  2, 
1788,  Williamson  wrote  to  Madison  about  the  Constitu- 
tion as  follows :  "  For  myself  I  conceive  that  my  opin- 
ions ^re  not  biased  by  private  interests,  but  having 
claims  to  a  considerable  quantity  of  lands  in  the  west- 
ern country,  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  the  value  of  those 
lands  must  be  increased  by  an  efficient  federal  govern- 
ment." 

George  Wythe  of  Virginia  inherited  a  large  estate 
and  owned  many  slaves.  He  was  a  lawyer  and  a  judge 
of  distinction.  He  was  a  decent  old  fellow,  according 
to  his  lights  —  but  his  lights  did  not  shine  far.  He 
emancipated  his  black  slaves,  but  was  blind  to  the  fact 
that  men  can  be  slaves  without  being  black. 

Robert  Yates  of  New  York  was  a  lawyer,  but  not  a 
grafter.  He  refused  to  speculate  in  public  securities, 
refused  to  sign  the  Constitution  and  died  poor. 

This  completes  the  list  of  delegates  who  attended  the 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP.          51 

constitutional  convention.  Most  of  them  were  lawyers. 
Fourteen  were  land  speculators.  Twenty- four  were 
money  lenders.  Eleven  were  merchants,  manufacturers 
or  shippers.  Fifteen  were  slave-holders.  Forty  of  the 
fifty-five  owned  public  securities.  Of  these  gentlemen, 
Professor  Beard  says: 

"  It  cannot  be  said,  therefore,  that  the  members  of 
the  convention  were  *  disinterested.'  On  the  contrary, 
we  are  forced  to  accept  the  profoundly  significant  con- 
clusion that  they  knew  through  their  personal  experi- 
ences in  economic  affairs  the  precise  results  which  the 
new  government  that  they  were  setting  up  was  designed 
to  attain." 

Professor  Farrand  of  Yale  quotes  a  contemporary  of 
the  "  fathers  "  who  opposed  the  Constitution,  as  follows : 

"  I  do  not  wish  to  detract  from  their  merits,  but  I 
will  venture  to  affirm  that  twenty  assemblies  of  equal 
number  might  be  collected,  equally  respectable  both  in 
point  of  ability,  integrity  and  patriotism.  Some  of  the 
characters  which  compose  the  convention,  I  revere; 
others,  I  consider  as  of  small  consequence,  and  a  num- 
ber are  suspected  of  being  great  public  defaulters,  and 
to  have  been  guilty  of  notorious  peculation  and  fraud 
with  regard  to  public  property  in  the  hour  of  our  dis- 
tress." 

Professor  Farrand  suspects  that  this  gentleman's  op- 
position to  the  Constitution  carried  him  too  far  in  cas- 
tigation  of  some  of  its  framers.  Yet  the  professor  does 
not  regard  the  fathers  as  a  miraculous  group. 

"  Great  men  there  were,"  he  said,  "  it  is  true,  but  the 
convention  as  a  whole  was  composed  of  men  such  as 
would  be  appointed  to  a  similar  gathering  at  the  pres- 
ent time:  professional  men,  business  men  and  gentle- 
men of  leisure;  patriotic  statesmen  and  clever,  scheming 


52        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

politicians;  some  trained  by  experience  and  study  for 
the  task  before  them  and  some  utterly  unfit." 

The  people  themselves  were  never  given  an  oppor- 
tunity to  vote  upon  the  Constitution.  Professor  Beard 
says  "  it  is  highly  probable  that  not  more  than  one- 
fourth  or  one-fifth  of  the  adult  white  males  took  part  in 
the  election  of  delegates  to  the  state  conventions"  that 
ratified  the  Constitution.  He  says  that  "  if  anything,  this 
estimate  is  too  high."  He  expresses  the  belief  that  not 
more  than  160,000  voters  "  expressed  an  opinion,  one 
way  or  the  other,  on  the  Constitution."  The  rest  were 
either  disfranchised  because  of  their  lack  of  sufficient 
property  to  entitle  them  to  vote,  or  made  silent  by  their 
dense  ignorance  as  to  what  the  elections  were  about. 
News  did  not  travel  rapidly  in  those  days.  Professor 
Beard  declares  that  in  many  rural  communities  the  elec- 
tions were  held  before  most  of  the  voters  knew  that 
elections  were  to  be  held.  He  also  declares  that  "  It 
may  very  well  be  that  a  majority  of  those  who  voted  were 
against  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  as  it  stood." 

Chief  Justice  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  in  re- 
ferring to  the  campaign  for  the  ratification  of  the  Con- 
stitution, says: 

"  So  balanced  were  the  parties  in  some  of  them  (the 
States)  that  even  after  the  subject  had  been  discussed 
for  a  considerable  time,  the  fate  of  the  Constitution  could 
.scarcely  be  conjectured;  and  so  small  in  many  instances 
(was  the  majority  in  its  favor  as  to  afford  strong  ground 
for  the  opinion  that,  had  the  influence  of  character 
been  removed,  the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  instrument 
would  not  have  secured  its  adoption.  Indeed,  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  doubted  that  in  some  of  the  adopting 
States  a  majority  of  the  people  were  in  the  opposition. 
In  all  of  them,  the  numerous  amendments  which  were 


WASHINGTON  AND  HIS  GROUP          53 

proposed  demonstrate  the  reluctance  with  which  the  new 
government  was  accepted;  and  that  a  dread  of  dismem- 
berment, not  an  approbation  of  the  particular  system 
under  consideration,  had  induced  an  acquiescence  in  it. 
,  North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island  did  not  at^first  accept 
the  Constitution,  and  New  York  was  apparently  dragged 
into  it  by  a  repugnance  to  being  excluded  from  the  con- 
federacy." 

Thus  do  we  see  how  silly  are  some  present-day  Amer- 
icans. They  cannot  bear  to  desecrate  with  a  breath  of 
criticism  the  sacred  Constitution.  They  do  not  know 
that  the  sacred  document  was  drawn  up  in  part  by  a, 
group  of  grafters,  and  that  the  Americans  of  1787  and 
thereabouts  came  within  a  hair's  breadth  of  repudiat- 
ing it. 


CHAPTER  IV, 

"  DIVIDE   AND  GOVERN  " 

/  /  O  OME  men  say  we  have  outgrown  our  eighteen th-cen- 
^  tury  Constitution.  This  observation  is  precisely  as 
accurate  as  it  would  be  to  say  that  a  dog  suffering  from 
fleas  had  outgrown  its  fleas.  Fleas  never  fit  dogs.  The 
Constitution  never  fitted  us.  It  never  fitted  us  because 
it  conflicts  with  the  fundamental  American  ideal  of  ma- 
jority rule.  The  history  of  the  government  of  the 
United  States  under  the  present  Constitution  is  a  long 
history  of  rule  by  minorities.  The  Constitution  by  no 
means  makes  majority  rule  impossible,  but  it  makes 
rule  by  a  compact,  energetic  minority  exceedingly  easy. 
It  was  meant  to  make  minority  rule  easy.  The  men 
who  made  the  Constitution  did  not  believe  that  majori- 
ties should  rule.  The  men  who  made  the  Constitution 
were  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  old  political  maxim: 
"  Divide  and  govern."  That  has  ever  been  the  maxim 
of  the  small,  compact,  well  organized,  intelligent  but 
unscrupulous  ruling  class.  Trump  up  fake  issues!  Fill 
the  air  with  a  din!  Divide  the  majority  into  parties  — 
"and  govern!" 

Almost  all  Americans  believe  otherwise.  Almost  all 
Americans  believe  that  the  Constitution  provides  for  rule 
by  majority.  Almost  all  Americans  believe  that  in  spirit 
and  substance,  the  Constitution  and  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  are  alike.  Almost  all  Americans  believe 
that  the  men  who  made  the  Constitution  believed  in  gov- 

54 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  55 

ernment  by  the  people.  Opposite  views  are  held  only 
by  those  who  know  the  facts. 

James  Madison  probably  had  more  to  do  than  did 
any  other  man  with  the  making  of  the  Constitution. 
Madison  is  known  as  the  "  Father  of  the  Constitution." 
His  memory  is  kept  verdant  by  those  who  revere  the  Con- 
stitution. Yet,  in  the  matter  of  majority  rule,  Mr. 
Madison,  when  he  was  urging  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution, talked  and  wrote  precisely  as  Mr.  Taft  talks 
and  writes  to-day.  Mr.  Taft  has  much  to  say  about  the 
"  tyranny  of  majorities."  So  had  Mr.  Madison.  Mr. 
Taft  has  much  to  say  as  to  the  necessity  of  maintaining 
the  Constitution  to  the  end  that  the  rights  of  minorities 
shall  not  be  denied  by  majorities.  So  had  Mr.  Madi- 
son. Mr.  Taft  can  never  sleep  quite  well  at  night  lest 
a  "  temporary  majority,"  inflamed  by  "  popular  passion," 
shall  trample  upon  the  sacred  rights  of  the  minority. 
Neither  could  Mr.  Madison.  Mr.  Taft's  views,  when 
they  became  sufficiently  known,  helped  to  send  him  into 
political  bankruptcy.  People  who  believe  in  majority 
rule  would  have  no  more  regard  for  the  Constitution 
and  James  Madison  than  they  have  for  Mr.  Taft  if  they 
knew  the  Constitution  and  James  Madison  as  well  as 
they  know  Mr.  Taft. 

Nobody  need  be  in  any  doubt  as  to  where  James  Madi- 
son stood.  He  told  where  he  stood  and  left  a  record 
of  what  he  said.  In  Paper  No.  10  of  The  Federalist, 
which  was  written  by  Madison,  he  said: 

"Among  the  numerous  advantages  promised  by  a 
well-constructed  union,  none  deserves  to  be  more  ac- 
curately developed  than  its  tendency  to  break  and  con- 
trol the  violence  of  faction.  *  *  *  When  a  majority  is 
included  in  a  faction,  the  form  of  popular  government, 
on  the  other  hand,  enables  it  to  sacrifice  to  its  ruling 


56        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

passion  or  interest,  both  the  public  good  arid  the  rights 
of  other  citizens.  To  secure  the  public  good  and 
private  rights  against  the  danger  of  such  a  faction,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  preserve  the  spirit  and  the  form  of 
popular  government,  is  then  the  great  object  to  which 
our  inquiries  are  directed." 

In  the  convention  that  framed  the  Constitution,  Mr. 
Madison  was  even  more  explicit.  Mr.  Madison  kept 
a  Journal  of  the  convention.  In  this  Journal  he  quoted 
himself  as  well  as  others.  On  Wednesday,  June  6, 
1787,  he  quoted  himself  as  having  spoken  as  follows:1 

"Where  a  majority  are  united  by  a  common  sentiment,  and 
have  an  opportunity,  the  rights  of  the  minor  party  become  insecure. 
In  a  republican  government,  the  majority,  if  united,  have  always 
an  opportunity.  The  only  remedy  is  to  enlarge  the  sphere "  (that 
is,  unite  all  the  States  under  a  federal  government)  "  and  thereby 
divide  the  community  into  so  great  a  number  of  interests  and  parties 
that,  in  the  first  place,  a  majority  will  not  be  likely,  at  the  same 
moment,  to  have  a  common  interest  separate  from  that  of  the 
whole,  or  of  the  minority;  and,  in  the  second  place,  that,  in  case 
they  should  have  such  an  interest,  they  may  not  be  so  apt  to  unite 
in  the  pursuit  of  it." 

In  other  words,  Mr.  Madison  did  not  believe  in  gov- 
ernment by  the  people.  If  "government  by  the  peo- 
ple "  means  anything  it  means  government  by  a  major- 
ity of  the  people.  Mr.  Madison  believed  the  majority  of 
the  people  should  have  their  way  only  at  such  times  as 
they  desired  to  perform  acts  which  were  not  opposed 
by  the  minority. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  structure  of  our  govern- 
ment, as  it  is  laid  down  by  the  Constitution,  and  see 
how  remarkably  it  is  adapted  to  the  carrying  out  of  Mr. 
Madison's  ideas.  Our  government  consists,  as  every- 
body knows,  of  three  departments,  the  legislative,  the 

i  Elliot's  Debates,  Vol.  V,  p.  163. 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  57 

executive  and  the  judicial.  As  the  ,  Constitution  came 
from  the  hands  of  Mr.  Madison  and  his  associates,  the 
people  were  to  elect  only  the  lower  house  of  congress, 
while  other  gentlemen  were  to  choose  the  Senators,  the 
President  and  the  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Con- 
gress was  given  power  to  enact  laws  over  the  veto  of 
the  President,  but  a  minority  of  one-fourth,  in  either 
house  of  congress,  could  block  the  majority  and  sustain 
the  veto.  The  presidential  veto  has  proved  to  be,  as 
it  was  intended  to  be,  all  but  insurmountable.  And, 
while  the  Constitution  neither  authorizes  nor  forbids  the 
supreme  court  to  declare  acts  of  congress  unconstitu- 
tional, the  court  has  usurped  the  power  to  do  so,  thus 
adding  another  factor  to  legislation. 

This  system  is  called  the  "  system  of  checks  and  bal- 
ances," because  each  department  of  the  government  is 
supposed  to  be  a  check  upon  each  of  the  others.  To 
persons  who  do  not  know  much  about  the  Constitution, 
it  is  doubtless  comforting  to  feel  that  they  live  under  a 
government  of  "checks  and  balances."  Checks  and 
balances  suggest  scales,  and  scales  suggest  justice.  But 
this  comfortable  feeling  does  not  last  long  when  one 
learns  whence  came  this  system,  how  it  originated  and 
what  it  means. 

It  did  not  come  from  America.  It  came  from  Eng- 
land. The  king  of  England  used  to  be  an  absolute  mon- 
arch. His  will  was  the  only  law.  The  rich,  titled  gen- 
tlemen of  his  day  did  not  always  like  his  laws.  They 
yearned  to  place  a  check  upon  him.  They  knew  of 
no  way  to  place  a  check  upon  him  except  by  taking 
a  hand  in  the  making  of  laws.  So,  to  put  a  brake 
upon  the  king,  they  established  a  house  of  lords,  com- 
posed of  some  of  their  own  number.  They  could  not 
make  the  king  enact  any  law  they  wanted,  but  they  could 


58        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

prevent  him  from  enacting  any  law  they  did  not  want. 

That  helped  some.  It  helped  the  aristocratic  persons 
so  much  that  the  common  people  took  notice.  They, 
too,  had  grievances.  The  king  and  the  lords  sometimes 
passed  laws  that  the  common  people  did  not  want.  So 
the  common  people  decided  to  put  a  check  upon  both  the 
king  and  the  lords  by  establishing  a  house  of  commons. 
Thereafter  no  law  could  be  enacted  without  the  consent 
of  the  commons. 

Thus  do  we  see  how  naturally  this  two-headed  legis- 
lative body  came  into  existence,  neither  of  which  could 
do  anything  without  the  consent,  not  only  of  the  other, 
but  of  the  head  of  the  State.  Nor  was  it  inconsistent 
upon  the  part  of  Mr.  Madison  and  other  gentlemen  who 
were  opposed  to  majority  rule,  to  transplant  this  sys- 
tem to  America.  But  what  shall  we  say  of  Americans 
of.  the  present  day,  who,  believing  in  majority  rule, 
nevertheless  perpetuate  this  system?  The  British  house 
of  lords  was  created  to  check  the  king,  but  whom  do  we 
wish  to  check  with  our  senate?  The  British  house  of 
commons  was  created  to  check  both  the  king  and  the 
lords,  but  whom  do  we  wish  to  check  with  our  house 
of  representatives?  The  British  king  and  the  lords 
both  acted  as  a  check  upon  the  commons,  but  why  should 
we  wish  the  President  and  the  senate  to  act  as  a  check 
upon  the  house  of  representatives?  The  British  people 
no  longer  have  any  "  checks  and  balances  "  in  their  gov- 
ernment. They  put  the  king  on  the  shelf,  a  long  while 
ago,  and  the  lords  are  now  upon  another  shelf.  The 
whole  legislative  power  of  the  empire  is  vested  in  the 
house  of  commons.  What  the  house  of  commons  pro- 
claims as  the  law  of  England  is  the  law  of  England. 
The  king  dare  not  peep  and  the  lords  dare  do  no  more 
than  peep.  Nor  does  the  highest  court  of  England  dare 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  59 

add  to  or  subtract  a  comma  from  what  the  house  of 
commons  has  declared  to  be  the  law. 

The  wealthy  men  of  America  are  indeed  fortunate 
that  America  still  clings  to  this  ancient  form  of  gov- 
ernment. The  wealthy  men  of  America,  like  wealthy 
men  everywhere  else,  are  not  so  much  interested  in  ob- 
taining better  laws  for  grafting  as  they  are  in  keeping 
the  good  grafting  laws  that  exist.  The  grafter's  ideal 
of  "  good  government "  is  therefore  a  government  that 
"stands  pat"  and  does  nothing.  If  the  government 
will  "  let  well  enough  alone,"  the  grafter  will  endeavor 
to  take  care  of  himself  —  handsomely.  Like  any  other 
marauder,  he  will  attend  to  his  victims  if  the  police  will 
only  keep  their  hands  off. 

But  the  prolonged  cries  of  the  victims  frequently  com- 
pel the  governmental  police  to  draw  near.  Bills  are  in- 
troduced in  congress  to  prevent  the  particular  kind  of 
garroting  that,  for  the  moment,  is  disturbing  the  peace. 
It  is  then  that  the  American  system  of  "  checks  and 
balances  "  stands  the  grafters  in  good  stead.  The  dis- 
tribution of  legislative  responsibility  between  two  houses 
of  congress,  the  President  and  the  supreme  court  invites 
almost  interminable  delay  and  obscures  responsibility. 
What  the  house  agrees  to,  the  senate  objects  to.  What 
the  senate  agrees  to,  the  house  objects  to.  What  they 
both  agree  to,  the  President  may  object  to.  What  the 
President  and  both  houses  of  congress  agree  to,  the  su- 
preme court  may  object  to,  or  may  "  construe  "  in  such 
fashion  that  it  is  made  lifeless.  These  facts  constitute 
some  of  the  reasons  why,  in  this  country,  a  generation 
is  required  to  bring  about  the  enactment  of  a  law  that 
everybody  wants.  There  are  other  reasons,  but  these 
are  some  of  the  reasons. 

[The  division  of  legislative  responsibility  Hoes  more. 


60        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

It  makes  both  houses  of  congress  houses  of  hypocrisy. 
There  is  and  long  has  been,  we  will  say,  a  great  pop- 
ular outcry  against  something,  with  a  demand  that  con- 
gress shall  enact  remedial  legislation.  For  a  time;  the 
outcry  is  ignored.  It  eventually  becomes  so  loud  that 
it  seems  best  to  pay  some  attention  to  it.  In  one  house 
or  the  other  —  usually  in  the  lower  house  —  a  bill  is 
introduced  to  remedy  the  evil.  The  sponsor  for  the  bill, 
not  infrequently,  is  a  man  of  doubtful  reputation  who 
needs  the  favorable  publicity  that  the  bill  will  give  him. 
Whoever  he  is,  he  lauds  the  bill  in  a  speech.  The  news- 
papers all  over  the  land  publish  the  speech.  The  people 
read  the  speech  and  are  filled  with  gratitude  that  con- 
gress at  last  has  heeded  their  cries.  Particularly  are  the 
constituents  of  those  congressmen  who  speak  —  particu- 
larly are  these  simple  people  filled  with  gratitude  and 
pride.  Their  congressmen  are  in  action.  They  are  do- 
ing the  people's  work.  Good  news.  The  house  passes 
the  bill  and  it  goes  to  the  senate,  where  it  is  permitted  to 
die. 

Back  of  the  bill,  however,  is  so  much  public  sentiment 
that  pressure  is  brought  to  bear  upon  congress  at  its 
next  session.  If  possible,  this  pressure  is  resisted  by 
trumping  up  other  issues  that,  for  the  moment,  fill  the 
public  eye  and  cause  the  people  to  lose  sight  of  their 
purpose.  Otherwise,  another  bill  is  introduced  in  the 
house.  It  may,  like  the  first  one,  be  introduced  by  a 
hypocrite  who  is  secretly  in  the  service  of  the  interests 
at  whom  the  bill  is  aimed,  or  it  may  be  introduced  by 
an  honest  man.  In  any  event,  there  is  more  patriotic 
speech-making  by  both  honest  and  dishonest  men,  all  of 
which  is  faithfully  reported  in  the  newspapers,  and  again 
the  house  passes  the  bill. 

The  practice  in  Washington  among  the  representa- 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  61 

tives  of  the  great  grafters  is  never  to  make  a  fight  against 
a  bill  in  both  houses.  The  wisdom  of  this  policy  is 
plain.  One  house  is  thereby  always  permitted  to  appear 
to  be  the  friend  of  the  people,  while  the  killing  of  a 
measure  in  one  house  is  all  that  is  necessary.  Every 
Washington  newspaper  correspondent  knows  this.  Any 
one  may  confirm  the  statement  by  watching  the  course 
of  legislation  for  a  few  years.  In  the  past,  it  has  been 
the  custom  to  introduce  these  fake  bills  in  the  house, 
pass  them  to  appease  public  clamor,  and  impose  upon 
the  senate  the  duty  of  killing  them.  Perhaps  the  sen- 
ators, now  that  they  are  elected  by  the  people,  will  de- 
mand the  right  to  pass  a  few  fake  bills  themselves  and 
let  the  representatives  bear  the  odium  of  killing  them. 

In  any  event,  after  a  bill  has  finally  been  driven  into 
the  senate  the  second  or  third  time,  it  may  have  behind 
it  so  much  backing  that  it  becomes  necessary  to  make 
a  fight  against  it.  The  usual  way,  when  it  cannot  be 
killed  in  committee,  is  to  extend  the  debate  upon  it  as 
many  months  as  possible,  in  the  hope  that  something 
else  may  develop  that  will  overshadow  it  and  make  it 
safe  to  permit  the  session  to  close  with  nothing  done. 
If  nothing  larger  comes  along,  the  bill  may  be  permitted 
to  come  to  a  vote  and  be  beaten  or  it  may  be  hamstrung 
with  amendments  and  passed.  The  course,  in  any  given 
case,  is  dependent  upon  the  strength  of  the  opposition 
and  what  seems,  in  the  circumstances,  to  be  the  most 
politic. 

Is  this  not  a  fine  example  of  "  government  by  the  peo- 
ple "  ?  The  picture  is  not  overdrawn.  The  effort  to  es- 
tablish a  parcel  post  was  attended  with  far  more  dif- 
ficulties, and  was  prolonged  over  a  greater  period.  A 
bill  to  establish  a  parcel  post  eventually  became  a  law,  it 
is  true;  but  it  was  a  sick  bill  when  it  came  through. 


62        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

It  established  just  as  poor  a  parcel  post  as  congress  dared 
to  establish  in  the  face  of  a  thirty  years'  demand  for 
an  honest  parcel  post. 

Here  we  see  Mr.  Madison  "  dividing  and  governing  " 
on  a  scale  more  stupendous,  perhaps,  than  he  ever 
dreamed.  Congress,  which  should  be  a  reflex  of  pop- 
ular opinion,  is  the  place  where  popular  opinion  most 
often  goes  down  to  defeat.  Not  down  to  unconstitu- 
tional defeat;  down  to  constitutional  defeat.  Public 
rights  are  outraged,  but  outraged  according  to  the  high- 
est law  of  the  land. 

Let  us,  then,  examine  even  a  little  more  closely  the 
highest  law  of  this  land.  Let  us  see  how  representa- 
tives in  congress  are  elected.  In  a  republic  we  should 
expect  to  see  the  vote  of  one  man  count  for  as  much 
as  the  vote  of  any  other.  We  should  not  expect  to  see 
the  votes  of  some  men  count  for  more  than  the  votes 
of  other  men.  But  in  this  make-believe  republic  of  ours, 
in  which  majorities  are  divided  in  order  that  minorities 
may  govern,  the  votes  of  some  men  count  for  much  more 
than  the  votes  of  some  others.  Let  us  look  into  this 
absurdity. 

The  Constitution,  as  Mr.  Madison  and  his  associates 
left  it  to  us,  provided  that  representatives  in  congress 
should  be  residents  of  the  States  which  elected  them. 
Now  that  the  union  is  composed  of  forty-eight  States, 
that  provision  in  itself  would  have  divided  the  people 
into  forty-eight  times  as  many  groups  as  there  are  polit- 
ical parties.  But  we  have  outdone  even  Mr.  Madison. 
We  have  enacted  an  unwritten  law  that  requires  each 
representative  to  be  a  resident  of  the  district  by  which 
he  is  nominated.  There  are  now,  in  the  United  States, 
435  congressional  districts.  As  there  are  four  political 
parties  of  importance  —  the  Democratic,  Progressive, 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  63 

Republican  and  Socialist  —  the  people  are  divided,  in 
congressional  elections,  into  four  times  435  groups,  or 
1,740  groups.  If  all  the  members  of  each  political 
party  were  to  vote  for  all  of  their  respective  party's 
candidates  throughout  the  nation,  the 'people  would  be 
divided  into  but  four  groups,  but  we  are  divided  into 
1,740  groups. 

Kindly  behold  what  this  division  does  to  us. 

In  the  State  of  New  York,  at  the  election  held  in 
1912,  only  21,500  votes  were  required  to  elect  a  Demo- 
cratic member  of  congress.  That  is  to  say,  the  Demo- 
crats cast  approximately  650,000  votes  and  elected  thirty 
members  of  congress. 

If  a  man  happened  to  be  a  Republican,  however,  his 
vote  did  not  count  for  so  much.  The  votes  of  41,000 
Republicans  were  required  to  elect  a  Republican  to  con- 
gress. The  citizens  of  New  York  who  joined  the  Pro- 
gressive party  fared  even  worse.  One  hundred  and 
ninety-one  thousand  votes  were  required  to  elect  a  Pro- 
gressive to  the  national  house  of  representatives.  And 
the  75,000  citizens  of  New  York  who  voted  the  Socialist 
ticket  were  denied  any  representation,  though,  if  they 
had  been  Democrats,  they  would  have  been  given  three 
representatives.  Thus  we  see  that  in  the  State  of  New 
York,  in  congressional  elections,  a  Democrat's  vote 
counts  for  twice  as  much  as  a  Republican's,  nine  times 
as  much  as  a  Progressive's,  and  as  many  times  more 
than  a  Socialist's  as  thirty  is  more  than  nothing. 

Every  State  affords  a  similar  illustration;  but  let  us 
take  Iowa  as  an  example.  The  Republicans  of  Iowa 
cast  24  per  cent,  of  the  vote  and  elected  72  per  cent,  of 
the  State's  representatives  in  congress.  The  Democrats 
cast  38  per  cent,  of  the  vote  and  elected  28  per  cent,  of 
the  representatives.  The  Progressives  cast  33  per  cent. 


64        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

and  elected  none.     The  Socialists  cast  a  fraction  more 
than  3  per  cent,  and  elected  none. 

Throughout  the  nation,  Mr.  Madison's  system  of 
"  dividing "  the  people  into  little  groups  resulted  even 
more  disastrously  to  popular  government.  The  Demo- 
crats in  1912,  cast  43  per  cent,  of  the  vote  and  should 
have  had  187  representatives,  but  they  obtained  291. 
The  Progressives  cast  28  per  cent,  of  the  vote  and  should 
have  had  122  representatives,  but  they  were  given  only 
20.  The  Republicans  cast  23  per  cent,  of  the  vote  and 
should  have  had  100  representatives  instead  of  124.  The 
Socialists  cast  a  fraction  more  than  6  per  cent,  of  the 
vote  and  should  have  had  26  representatives  instead  of 
none. 

The  electoral  college  absurdity  was  intended  by  Mr. 
Madison  to  be  even  more  of  an  absurdity  than  it  is,  but 
it  is  still  a  constant  menace  to  popular  government.  It 
is  first  a  menace  because  it  gives  the  small  States  voting 
power  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  population.  This 
is  done  by  giving  each  State  as  many  electoral  votes  as 
it  has  representatives  and  senators  in  congress.  In  the 
electoral  college,  for  instance,  the  States  of  Delaware, 
Montana,  Idaho,  Wyoming,  Colorado,  New  Mexico, 
Arizona,  Utah  and  Nevada,  with  a  population  of  2,835,- 
839  have  33  votes,  while  Michigan  and  Massachusetts 
have  only  33  votes,  though  in  1912  they  had  a  population 
of  6,176,589.  In  other  words,  in  voting  for  President, 
3,340,750  citizens  of  Michigan  and  Massachusetts  do  not 
count.  If  they  were  to  drop  dead  the  result  would  be 
unchanged.  Though  they  constitute  more  than  half  the 
population  of  these  two  great  States,  they  are  denied  all 
representation,  because  the  citizens  of  the  nine  little 
States  are  given  too  much  representation.  Putting  it  in 
still  another  way,  each  citizen  of  the  nine  little  States 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  65 

has  more  than  twice  the  voting  power  of  any  citizen  of 
Massachusetts  or  Michigan. 

It  should  thus  become  plain  to  the  dullest  that  the 
electoral  college  is  still  an  enormous  stumbling  block 
to  popular  government.  The  danger  that  lay  in  this 
fraudulent  institution  was  by  no  means  removed  when 
the  people  took  from  the  electors  the  right  to  vote  for 
their  individual  choices  and  imposed  upon  them  the  ob- 
ligation to  vote  for  the  nominees  of  the  parties  who 
elected  them.  The  electoral  college  still  makes  it  pos- 
sible for  a  man  to  be  chosen  President  who  did  not 
receive  a  majority  of  the  votes,  and  it  sometimes  makes 
it  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  chosen  President  who  did 
receive  a  majority.  Mr.  Tilden  received  a  majority  of 
the  people's  votes,  but  was  nevertheless  defeated  in  the 
electoral  college.  Though  the  Constitution  says  that  no 
man  shall  be  declared  elected  President  unless  he  shall 
have  received  a  majority  of  the  electoral  votes,  it  takes 
no  note  of  the  fact  that  the  recipient  of  a  majority  of 
the  electoral  vote  may  have  been  opposed  by  more  than 
half  of  the  people.  More  than  half  of  the  people  voted 
against  Lincoln  in  1860.  More  than  half  of  the  people 
did  not  vote  for  Mr.  Wilson  in  1912.  The  fact  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  later  immortalized  himself  in  the  Presidency 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  wrong  in  the  Constitution 
that  makes  possible  the  seating  of  a  President  whom 
more  than  half  of  the  people  did  not  want.  If  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  been  an  incompetent,  the  Constitution  would 
still  have  required  that  he  be  installed. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  Mr.  Wilson,  who  received 
435  electoral  votes  when,  upon  the  basis  of  his  percent- 
age of  the  total  popular  vote,  he  should  have  had  but 
229.  If  each  of  the  chief  four  candidates  had  received 
the  electoral  vote  to  which  his  percentage  of  the  pop- 


66        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

ular  vote  entitled  him,  Taft  would  have  received  122 
votes  instead  of  8;  Roosevelt  would  have  received  148 
instead  of  88,  and  Debs  would  have  received  32  instead 
of  none.  Mr.  Wilson  would  have  thus  had  229  votes, 
with  which  to  face  a  combined  opposition  of  302.  By 
the  terms  of  the  Constitution,  the  election  would  have 
been  thrown  into  the  house  of  representatives,  where, 
if  each  party  had  had  the  representation  —  and  only  the 
representation  —  to  which  its  percentage  of  the  total  vote 
entitled  it,  the  Democrats  would  have  had  only  187  votes 
with  which  to  confront  a  combined  opposition  of  248. 
Conceivably  the  time  may  come  when  this  inaccurate 
system  of  registering  the  people's  will  may  result  in  giv- 
ing a  majority  of  the  electoral  vote  to  a  man  whom  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  distrust  and  have  reason  to 
distrust.  At  a  critical  time,  such  an  "  election  "  might 
precipitate  a  revolution.  At  any  time  such  an  election 
is  an  assault  upon  the  fundamental  principles  of  pop- 
ular government. 

"he  manner  in  which  presidential  candidates  are  nom- 
inated is  also  a  denial  of  popular  government.  The  Con- 
stitution makes  no  provision  for  the  nomination  of 
candidates.  Therein  the  Constitution  is  grossly  inade- 
quate. The  right  to  vote  for  presidential  candidates  is 
of  exceedingly  small  importance  provided  it  be  not  pre- 
ceded by  the  right  to  determine  who  the  candidates  shall 
be.  The  people  have  never  yet  determined  who  their 
candidates  should  be.  Politicians,  usually  backed  by 
great  business  interests,  have  always  usurped  this  pop- 
ular function.  Out  of  the  struggles  of  politicians,  good 
candidates  have  sometimes  come,  as  Lincoln  came,  but 
such  good  fortune  is  not  to  be  credited  to  the  system 
that  produced  it. 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  67 

The  failure  of  the  Constitution  to  provide  definite 
means  by  which  the  people  may  nominate  their  own 
candidates  is  a  failure  of  the  first  importance.  The  presi- 
dency has  become  too  powerful  an  office  for  its  incum- 
bent to  be  the  selection  of  a  minority  working  in  the 
dark.  Nor  can  the  United  States  be  a  real  republic  until 
its  citizens  shall  be  given  the  opportunity  both  to  choose 
their  own  candidates  and  to  vote  directly  for  them. 

The  election  of  United  States  senators  by  state  legis- 
latures was  another  great  injustice  that  Mr.  Madison 
and  his  associates  inflicted  upon  the  American  people. 
Nor  has  the  wrong  been  righted  by  the  constitutional 
amendment  that  gives  to  the  people  the  right  to  elect 
senators.  The  fiction  that  the  senate  should  represent 
the  States  and  not  the  people  no  longer  exists.  The  sen- 
ate is  now,  no  less  than  the  lower  house,  a  representative 
of  the  people  themselves.  What  an  absurdity  it  there- 
fore is  that  Nevada,  with  a  population  of  81,875,  should 
have  as  many  senators  as  New  York  has,  with  a  popula- 
tion of  9,113,614.  New  York,  having  as  it  does,  more 
than  in  times  the  population  of  Nevada,  still  has  no 
more  representation  in  a  purely  representative  body  such 
as  the  senate  has  come  to  be.  This  is  equivalent  to  giv- 
ing each  citizen  of  Nevada  in  times  as  much  represen- 
tation in  the  senate  as  any  citizen  of  New  York  enjoys. 

This  is  neither  common  sense  nor  political  honesty. 
It  is  equally  remote  from  any  principle  that  should  under- 
lie a  republic.  A  republic  cannot  exist  upon  such  prin- 
ciples. The  senate,  though  it  has  but  96  members,  has 
equal  powers  with  the  house  in  all  legislative  matters, 
and  exceeds  the  house  in  that  it  shares  with  the  presi- 
dent the  power  of  making  treaties  and  filling  public  of- 
fices. Since  the  senate  no  longer  represents  the  States, 


68        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

but  the  people,  every  consideration  of  justice  therefore 
requires  that  representation  in  the  senate  should  be  based 
upon  population.  It  is  a  manifest  absurdity  that  New 
York,  with  a  population  of  9,113,614,  should  be  repre- 
sented by  only  two  senators,  while  36  senators  should 
represent  the  8,635,666  persons  who  live  in  Montana, 
Idaho,  Wyoming,  Colorado,  New  Mexico,  Arizona, 
Utah,  Nevada,  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont, 
Rhode  Island,  North  Dakota,  South  Dakota,  Delaware, 
Florida,  California  and  Oregon.  The  nation  perhaps 
might  well  consider  it  an  affliction  if  New  York  had 
36  such  senators  as  it  usually  has,  but  if  the  people  of 
New  York  were  actually  to  nominate  and  elect  their 
senators,  there  is  a  possibility  that  such  gentlemen  would 
not  be  chosen. 

At  any  rate,  as  citizens  of  the  United  States,  residents 
of  any  State  are  entitled  to  equal  representation  in  the 
senate  with  residents  of  any  other  State.  As  the  Con- 
stitution now  stands,  this  right  is  denied  to  all  of  the 
citizens  of  the  larger  States. 

In  this  brief  space  no  attempt  has  been  made  to  do 
more  than  point  out  some  of  the  more  grievous  wrongs 
that  are  imbedded  in  the  structure  of  the  Constitution. 
I  do  not  call  these  wrongs  defects  because  they  did  not 
come  about  by  negligence  or  by  ignorance.  They  were 
placed  in  the  Constitution  to  make  this  the  sort  of  a  "  re- 
public" that  the  aristocratic  gentlemen  of  1787  wanted 
the  United  States  to  be.  Our  patriotic  forefathers  be- 
lieved we  could  not  be  trusted  to  conduct  this  govern- 
ment as  their  interests  required  that  it  should  be  con- 
ducted, so  they  drafted  a  constitution  under  which 
government  by  the  people  became  a  practical  impossibil- 
ity. They  talked  glibly  about  a  "  republic  "  and  handed 
the  people  the  sop  of  representation  in  the  house  of  rep- 


"  DIVIDE  AND  GOVERN  "  69 

resentatives,  because  they  realized  that  unless  they  made 
a  pretense  of  creating  a  republic  the  new  Constitution 
would  be  rejected. 

Doubtless  these  statements  will  come  as  something  of 
a  shock  to  those  persons  who  know  nothing  in  particular 
about  the  Constitution  except  that  they  have  always  been 
told  that  it  is  almost  a  sacred  document.  Little  law- 
yers, puffed  with  pride  that  the  Constitution  underlies 
so  much  of  their  learning,  are  also  likely  to  remain  un- 
convinced that  t}ie  organic  law  of  the  United  States  is 
not  the  last  word  in  republican  government.  But  men 
of  information  and  intelligence  will  not  be  surprised. 
To  such  as  these,  all  that  has  been  set  down  here  is  but 
an  old  story.  President  Wilson  knew  all  of  these  facts 
and  others  when,  long  before  he  became  President,  in 
writing  about  the  Constitution,  he  said  that  "  it  had  been 
meant  to  check  the  sweep  and  power  of  popular  majori- 
ties " ;  that  it  was  "  not  by  intention  a  democratic  gov- 
ernment " ;  and  that  "  the  government  had,  in  fact,  been 
originated  and  organized  upon  the  initiative  and  pri- 
marily in  the  interest  of  the  mercantile  and  wealthy 
classes." 

Mr.  Wilson,  writing  long  before  he  became  President, 
also  knew  how  it  came  about  that  this  Constitution, 
which  the  rich  men  of  the  eighteenth  century  created  for 
the  benefit  of  themselves  and  their  class,  was  eventually 
palmed  off  as  a  great  instrument  for  popular  rule.  Con- 
certed, energetic  means  were  taken  by  the  rich  men  of 
the  day  to  change  public  opinion,  which,  from  the  be- 
ginning, had  been  hostile  to  the  Constitution.  As  the 
result  of  such  efforts,  said  Mr.  Wilson,1  criticism  of 
the  Constitution  "  soon  gave  place  to  an  undiscriminating 
and  almost  blind  worship  of  its  principles  *  *  *  and 

1  Congressional  Government,  p.  4. 


70        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

criticism  was  estopped.  *  *  *  The  divine  right  of  kings 
never  ran  a  more  prosperous  course  than  did  this  un- 
questioned prerogative  of  the  Constitution  to  receive  uni- 
versal homage.  The  conviction  that  our  institutions 
were  the  best  in  the  world,  nay,  more,  the  model  to  which 
all  civilized  States  must  sooner  or  later  conform,  could 
not  be  laughed  out  of  us  by  foreign  critics,  nor  shaken 
out  of  us  by  the  roughest  jolts  of  the  system." 

After  the  passage  by  congress  of  the  Underwood  tar- 
iff bill,  Mr.  Wilson  issued  a  statement  in  which  he  con- 
gratulated the  country  upon  the  enactment  of  a  law  re- 
ducing the  tariff  after  a  fight  that  had  lasted  "  a  long 
generation." 

How  much  control  have  the  people  over  a  government 
that  requires  "  a  long  generation  "  to  respond  to  their 
demand  for  lower  tariff  duties? 

"  Divide  and  govern  " —  that's  the  thing.  Split  the 
majority  into  small  parties  and  the  minority  will  take 
care  of  itself.  Such  was  the  philosophy  of  Mr.  Madi- 
son. The  Tammany  statesman  who  said  "  Give  the  peo- 
ple what  they  want,  but  make  it  unconstitutional,"  had 
substantially  the  same  philosophy,  but  lacked  the  fine 
choice  of  language  that  characterized  Mr.  Madison. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHAT    WE   SHOULD    HAVE 

NAPOLEON  BONAPARTE  once  remarked  to  his 
friend,  Count ^ Roederer,  that  "a  constitution 
should  be  short  and  obscure."  A  bulldog,  if  it  could 
speak,  would  doubtless  still  contend  that  the  best  kind  of 
chain  with  which  to  prevent  a  bulldog  from  biting  com- 
mon citizens  is  a  short,  weak  chain.  But  if  common 
citizens  were,  by  becoming  the  aggressors,  to  exchange 
places  with  bulldogs,  we  should  scarcely  expect  the  com- 
mon citizens  to  chain  themselves  firmly  to  posts  merely 
because  they  had  deemed  it  wise  to  chain  the  bulldogs 
when  the  bulldogs  were  fighting  them. 

That  which  is  plain  to  everybody,  however,  when  it 
pertains  to  bulldogs,  is  plain  almost  to  nobody  when 
it  pertains  to  constitutions. 

A  constitution,  except  in  so  far  as  it  provides  the  ma- 
chinery of  government,  is  a  chain  upon  the  hind  leg  of 
government. 

The  chain  fixes  a  line  beyond  which  the  government 
cannot  go.  If  government  be  by  a  thievish  minority  in- 
terest, it  behooves  the  productive  majority  to  shackle 
the  minority  with  a  constitution. 

But  if  government  be  by  the  productive  majority,  the 
logic  that  brought  the  constitution  into  being  no  longer 
exists. 

The  people,  having  taken  over  the  control  of  govern- 


72        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

ment,  have  no  need  to  hamper  government,  because  to 
hamper  government  now  means,  not  to  hamper  their  op- 
ponents, but  to  hamper  themselves. 

In  other  words,  the  question  as  to  whether  the  peo- 
ple are  benefited  by  living  under  a  constitution  bristling 
with  "  dont's  "  is  solely  a  question  as  to  whether  the 
people,  or  those  who  would  rob  them,  are  in  control  of 
the  government. 

The  question  as  to  whether  a  thievish  minority  inter- 
est is  helped  or  hurt  by  a  restrictive  constitution  is  also 
solely  a  question  as  to  whether  the  minority  interest  is 
in  control  of  the  government.  If  the  minority  be  in 
control  of  the  government,  a  constitution  can  be  of  no 
value  to  the  minority  except  as  a  protection  against  a 
threatened  uprising  of  the  majority. 

If  the  sway  of  the  minority  be  threatened,  the  inclina- 
tion of  the  minority  toward  a  constitution  will  exactly 
correspond  to  the  minority's  fear  of  the  majority. 

In  short,  the  attitude  of  the  thievish  minority  toward 
a  constitution  is  and  ever  has  been  a  sort  of  thermome- 
ter, the  ups  and  downs  of  which  reflect  the  minority's 
faith  or  lack  of  faith  in  its  own  ability  to  keep  the  con- 
trol of  government  from  the  majority. 

So  long  as  a  minority,  as  personified  by  an  absolute 
monarch,  has  firm  faith  in  its  power  to  hold  on,  a  re- 
quest for  a  constitution  is  regarded  as  an  imperti- 
nence. 

If  the  majority  be  so  restless  that  it  seems  expedient 
to  pacify  them,  yet  so  ignorant  that  they  can  readily  be 
deceived,  it  has  ever  been  the  custom  of  gentlemen  like 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  to  favor  "  short  and  obscure  "  con- 
stitutions. 

But  when  the  majority  become  so  insistent  that  they 
constitute  a  real  menace  to  minority  rule,  then  it  is  that 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  73 

the  minority,  looking  forward  to  the  time  when  they 
will  be  driven  from  power,  come  out  strongly  for  the 
written  word  in  constitutional  law. 

When  minorities  and  majorities  exchange  places  they 
also  always  exchange  their  opinions  with  regard  to  the 
desirability  of  hampering  the  governing  power  with  re- 
strictive constitutions. 

The  minority,  in  the  face  of  danger,  modify  their 
opinions  even  more  rapidly  than  the  transposition  pro- 
ceeds, because  the  minority  are  better  informed  and 
more  energetic  than  the  majority.  The  majority,  busy 
with  their  daily  labor  and  less  concerned  with  govern- 
ment, change  their  views  less  rapidly  than  the  transposi- 
tion proceeds.  Their  minds,  in  other  words,  follow  the 
event  at  some  distance. 

All  of  which  explains  why  the  grafting  class  of  this 
country,  as  it  sees  governmental  power  slipping  through 
its  hands,  stakes  more  and  more  upon  the  Constitution, 
while  the  people,  as  they  gain  power,  progress  steadily 
toward  a  state  of  mind  that  will  ultimately  cause  them 
to  destroy  the  Constitution. 

Yesterday  they  destroyed  the  senate  that  was  and 
fashioned  a  new  one. 

To-morrow  they  will  discover  that  having  done  no 
more  than  destroy  the  senate  that  was  they  might  as  well 
have  done  nothing. 

Thus  is  the  Constitution  destined  to  go  down  before 
the  logical  processes  of  the  people's  own  thought. 

It  cannot  stand  because  it  ought  not  to  stand. 

It  must  give  way  as  everything  must  give  way  that 
was  reared  to  prevent  the  people  from  asserting  and  ex- 
ercising mastership  over  themselves. 

It  may  therefore  not  be  amiss  at  this  time  to  sketch 
the  general  outlines  of  a  constitution  under  which  the 


74        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

people  of  the  United  States  could  actually  become  self- 
governing.  Accustomed  as  we  are  to  the  sight  of 
scores  of  men,  wrestling  for  months  to  draft  a  consti- 
tution for  a  State,  it  may  seem  preposterous  for  an  in- 
dividual to  present,  in  a  few  pages,  the  general  outlines 
of  a  constitution  for  the  United  States. 

If  we  reflect  a  moment,  however,  we  shall  see 
wherein  the  two  tasks  radically  differ. 

When  we  see  a  state  constitutional  convention  in  ses- 
sion, we  behold  gentlemen  representing  every  variety  of 
conflicting  business  interest  who,  for  the  most  part,  are 
in  agreement  upon  but  one  point  —  they  most  earnestly 
desire  to  fashion  a  fundamental  law  under  which  a  small 
minority  (the  capitalist  class)  may  rule  the  great  ma- 
jority (the  working  class). 

That  this  is  no  small  task  may  be  realized  when  the 
fact  is  considered  that,  to  accomplish  the  desire  of  the 
capitalist  minority,  the  political  institutions  of  the  State 
must  be  so  fashioned  that  the  majority  will  seem  to  have 
dominating  power  that  actually  resides  in  the  minority. 
In  other  words,  while  giving  the  minority  the  substance, 
the  shadow  must  be  given  to  the  majority. 

To  foist  upon  the  people  of  a  great  State,  who  both 
believe  in  and  demand  self-government,  a  constitution 
under  which  a  mere  handful  actually  govern,  is  indeed 
a  task  that  may  well  engage  the  careful  attention  of  the 
most  artful  corporation  lawyers  and  their  lesser  associ- 
ates. It  is  a  task  that,  in  difficulty,  suggests  the  plac- 
ing of  a  pyramid  in  perpetual  balance  upon  its  apex. 
But  the  task  of  drafting  the  outlines  of  a  constitution 
under  which  the  people  could  really  rule  themselves 
presents  neither  such  embarrassments  nor  such  diffi- 
culties. It  is  relatively  as  much  more  simple  than  the 
drafting  of  a  fraudulent  constitution  as  straightforward 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  75 

truth-telling  on  the  witness  stand  is  simpler  than  pro- 
tracted lying  —  and  for  much  the  same  reasons. 

NA  constitution  under  which  the  people  could  actually 
govern  themselves  should  make  a  congress,  composed 
of  a  single  house,  the  chief  instrument  of  government. 
A  measure,  having  passed  the  scrutiny  and  received  the 
indorsement  of  that  single-bodied  congress,  should  be- 
come the  law.  No  senate  should  be  permitted  to  mangle 
or  kill  it.  No  president  should  be  permitted  to  touch  it. 
No  supreme  court  should  be  permitted  to  alter  a  word 
of  it.  Even  the  constitution  should  contain  nothing  to 
prevent  congress  from  enacting  either  that  or  any  other 
law.  But  the  people  should  have  the  right  to  halt  the 
execution  of  the  law  and,  after  consideration,  kill  every 
word  of  it. 

A  congress,  to  be  worth  while,  should  have  great 
power,  but,  to  be  safe,  it  should  be  offset  by  a  greater 
power.  The  people's  rights  can  never  be  safe  so  long 
as  that  greater  power  resides  elsewhere  than  in  the  peo- 
ple themselves.  These  rights  are  too  precious  to  en- 
trust to  any  one  man,  even  though  he  be  the  president. 
They  are  too  precious  to  entrust  to  any  nine  men,  even 
though  they  wear  black  robes  and  be  justices  of  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court.  The  voice  of  congress 
should  be  regarded  as  the  presumptive  voice  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  nobody  but  the  people  themselves  should  have 
the  right  to  countermand  its  orders. 

Congress  should  consist  of  but  one  house  because,  in 
a  nation  fitted  for  self-government,  that  government  is 
best,  in  the  long  run,  which  responds  most  promptly  to 
the  desires  of  the  people.  Every  check  that  the  pres- 
ent Constitution  places  upon  the  house  of  representa- 
tives was  placed  there,  not  to  safeguard  the  interests  of 
the  majority,  but  to  safeguard  the  interests  of  the  mi- 


76        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

nority.  Congress  was  split  into  two  houses  to  assist 
the  few  in  thwarting  the  will  of  the  many.  The  Presi- 
dent was  given  a  qualified  veto  to  enable  the  minority 
and  the  President  to  overcome  the  majority.  The  su- 
preme court,  too,  in  usurping  the  power  to  declare  acts 
of  congress  unconstitutional,  sought  only  to  prevent  the 
representatives  of  the  majority  from  enforcing  their 
will.  Each  of  these  devices  has  done  and  is  doing  what 
it  was  intended  to  do. 

The  division  of  congress  into  two  houses  helps  only 
the  grafters.  •  If  congress  were  divided  into  three 
houses,  the  situation  of  the  grafters  would  be  still  more 
pleasurable  to  the  grafters.  The  longer  the  gauntlet 
down  which  a  bill  must  run,  the  greater  the  opportunity 
for  grafters  to  knock  it  out.  If  congress  were  com- 
posed of  half  a  dozen  houses,  with  the  consent  of  all 
necessary  to  the  enactment  of  any  law,  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  enact  any  law  worth  enacting. 

The  argument  that  is  most  frequently  offered  in  justi- 
fication of  a  congress  composed  of  two  houses  is  that 
hasty,  ill-advised  legislation  is  made  less  likely  and  that 
government  is  thereby  given  greater  stability.  But 
government  should  possess  not  only  the  quality  of 
stability,  but  the  quality  of  mobility.  It  should  move 
when  the  people  order  it  to  move.  A  government  that 
is  incapable  of  a  large  degree  of  mobility  will  not,  in 
fact,  forever  remain  stable.  A  thoughtful,  aspiring 
people  will  not  forever  tolerate  a  form  of  government 
that  tantalizes  them  with  its  procrastinations  and  its 
general  inadequacies.  And,  so  far  as  "  hasty,  ill- 
advised  legislation  "  is  concerned,  this  plea  is  but  a  sub- 
terfuge. No  interest  in  this  country  has  compelled  so 
much  hasty,  ill-advised  legislation  as  the  selfish  interest 
that  usually  controls  this  government.  What  this  in- 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  77 

terest  really  fears  is  all  legislation,  "  hasty  "  or  other- 
wise, that  makes  the  business  of  grafting  less  remunera- 
tive. 

While  congress  should  be  composed  of  but  a  single 
house  upon  which  not  even  the  Constitution  should  place 
any  restrictions,  the  people  should  have  the  power, 
through  referendum,  to  repeal  or  modify  any  and  every 
law  that  congress  may  enact.  When  the  people  have 
this  power,  constitutional  restrictions  upon  congress  will 
be  unnecessary,  because  every  measure  will  then  be 
passed  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  people.  This  ap- 
proval may  be  manifested  by  silent  acquiescence,  or  by 
an  affirmative  referendum  vote.  In  any  event,  no  law 
can  exist  against  the  people's  wishes.  Such  laws  as  the 
people  oppose  they  will,  if  necessary,  destroy  by  direct 
vote.  If  congress  shall  neglect  or  refuse  to  enact  such 
laws  as  the  people  desire,  the  people  will  then  enact  such 
laws  by  direct  vote.  With  such  powers,  including  the 
power  of  recall,  vested  in  the  people  themselves,  the 
rights  of  citizens  will  be  safeguarded  as  no  flimsy  words 
in  a  constitution  ever  safeguarded  human  rights. 

The  right  of  the  people  to  repeal  and  enact  laws  and 
recall  public  officials  should  be  exercised  according  to 
laws  approved  by  the  people.  It  should  be  made 
impossible  for  a  disgruntled  minority,  of  insignificant 
proportions,  to  keep  the  government  continually  in  a  tur- 
moil by  constant  appeals  to  the  initiative,  the  refer- 
endum, and  the  recall.  The  percentage  of  petitioners 
required  to  submit  a  question  to  the  electorate  should 
therefore  be  made  high  enough  to  shut  out  triflers  with- 
out constituting  a  serious  barrier  to  the  well-intentioned. 

On  the  other  hand,  better  means  should  be  provided 
for  obtaining  the  number  of  signatures  necessary  to  set 
the  machinery  of  direct  legislation  in  motion,  This 


78        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

machinery  is  exceedingly  defective  in  those  States  in 
which  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall  are 
in  force.  The  law  makes  no  provision  whatever  for  the 
gathering  of  signatures.  Interested  persons  or  organi- 
zations are  therefore  left  to  hire  canvassing  forces  — 
and  to  pay  them.  The  gathering  of  signatures  in  this 
manner  is  exceedingly  expensive.  The  cost  has  often 
been  reported  to  be  as  much  as  ten  cents  each.  This 
charge  amounts  to  a  considerable  sum,  even  in  a  city 
where  only  a  few  thousand  signatures  are  required. 
Such  a  charge  would  make  it  impossible  for  any  but  a 
very  rich  man  to  set  in  motion  a  national  referendum 
for  the  repeal  of  a  law  enacted  by  congress.  Yet,  if 
direct  legislation  be  not  made  accessible  to  the  people, 
it  is  not  direct  legislation.  It  is  a  sham. 

Perhaps  as  good  a  way  as  any  to  bring  direct  legisla- 
tion within  reach  of  the  people  would  be  for  the  gov- 
ernment to  utilize* the  postal  service  in  the  circulation  of 
petitions.  We  have  approximately  60,000  post  offices. 
Upon  the  payment  in  advance  of  a  sum  sufficient  to 
cover  the  cost  of  printing  60,000  copies  of  the  petition 
setting  forth  the  question  at  issue,  the  government  might 
undertake  to  place  a  petition  in  each  post  office  and 
authorize  the  postmaster  to  witness  signatures.  If  not 
enough  signatures  should  be  obtained  within  a  stipulated 
reasonable  time  to  cause  the  matter  to  be  submitted  to 
a  vote  of  the  people,  the  deposit  made  by  the  instigator 
should  be  retained  by  the  government.  If  the  required 
number  of  signatures  should  be  obtained,  however,  the 
deposit  should  be  returned,  on  the  theory  that  any  law 
that  is  so  objectionable,  say,  to  10  or  15  per  cent,  of  the 
voting  population  that  they  demand  its  repeal  is  at  least 
so  questionable  that  the  public  should  bear  the  expense 
of  submitting  it  to  the  great  jury  of  the  public. 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  79 

The  cost  of  obtaining  a  million  signatures  in  this  way 
might  be  set  at  $2,000.  The  same  number  of  signa- 
tures, at  10  cents  each,  would  cost  $100,000.  The 
$2,000  charge  would  discourage  triflers.  The  reduction 
from  $100,000  to  $2,000  would  encourage  the  well-in- 
tentioned. The  return  of  the  $2,000,  in  the  event  of 
the  required  number  of  signers  being  obtained,  would 
make  direct  legislation  still  more  accessible  to  the  peo- 
ple. Nor  would  the  $2,000  deposit  stand  in  the  way 
of  any  proper  use  of  direct  legislation.  Two  thousand 
dollars  would  constitute  a  greater  sum  than  any  in- 
dividual, except  a  rich  man,  would  care  to  stake. 

But  the  way  should  not  be  made  easy  for  an  individ- 
ual having  few  or  no  followers  to  submit  a  question  at  a 
general  election.  Serious  matters  of  national  impor- 
tance will  always  command  enough  adherents  to  make 
the  raising  of  $2,000  insignificant.  Rich  individuals 
who  might  be  willing  to  risk  $2,000  in  the  hope  of  com- 
pelling a  vote  on  a  matter  to  which  the  public  was  op- 
posed would  cease  to  be  active  as  soon  as  they  had  failed 
a  few  times  and  lost  their  money  each  time. 

The  manner  in  which  the  initiative,  the  referendum 
and  the  recall  should  be  operated,  or  how  fraudulent 
signers  of  petitions  should  be  punished,  are  not,  how- 
ever, subjects  that  should  be  considered  in  a  constitu- 
tion. The  foregoing  suggestions  are  made  merely  to 
indicate  the  ease  with  which  congress  might  be  held  in 
perfect  check  by  the  people.  I  simply  make  the  point 
that  no  popular  government  can  be  conspicuously  effi- 
cient unless  it  is  built  around  a  great  congress ;  a  congress 
unshackled  by  constitution  or  courts,  yet  a  congress  that 
is  at  all  times  under  the  control  of  the  people. 

Members  of  congress  should  not  be  elected  by  dis- 
tricts, or  even  by  States,  but  by  the  people  of  the  United 


8o        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

States,  voting  at  large.  Nominations  should  be  made 
by  districts,  but  the  electors  of  a  district  should  not  be 
confined  to  their  district  in  the  choice  of  a  candidate. 
Electors  in  Maine  should  have  the  right  to  nominate 
for  congress  a  citizen  of  California.  The  present  Con- 
stitution'does  not  require  that  a  congressional  candidate 
shall  be  a  resident  of  the  district  from  which  he  is  nomi-' 
nated,  though  it  does  require  that  he  shall  be  a  resident 
of  the  State,  but  custom,  which  has  acquired  the  force 
of  law,  requires  that  he  shall  be  also  a  resident  of  the 
district. 

i>"The  present  method  of  nominating  and  electing  mem- 
bers of  congress  works  against  the  interests  of  the  peo- 
ple in  several  ways.  The  provision  requiring  a  member 
of  congress  to  be  the  resident  of  the  district  and  the 
State  which  he  represents  tends  to  make  him,  when  he 
goes  to  Washington,  not  a  national  legislator,  which 
is  all  he  should  be,  but  a  state  legislator  and  even  a 
district  legislator.  From  the  moment  he  takes  office,  he 
is  likely  to  think  more  about  his  district  and  his  State 
than  he  does  about  the  United  States.  Whereas  his  first 
concern  should  be  to  serve  the  United  States,  the  cir- 
cumstances of  his  election  compel  him  to  shape  his 
official  conduct  so  that  it  shall  make  particular  appeal 
to  his  district. 

A  member  of  congress,  having  political  ambitions  to 
gratify,  naturally  seeks  to  make  particular  appeal  to  the 
people  who  have  it  in  their  power  either  to  keep  him  in 
or  withdraw  him  from  congress.  The  people  of  the 
United  States  have  no  control  over  a  member  of  con- 
gress, though  they  pay  him  his  salary  and  he  is  supposed 
to  have  no  other  official  duty  than  to  serve  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  voters  who  reside  in  the  district  of 
a  member  of  congress  have  power  to  do  with  him  as 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE          ,     81 

they  will.  Thus  does  it  come  about  that  the  present 
system  of  electing  members  of  congress  causes  them  to 
exhaust  their  resources  to  placate,  appease,  cajole, 
wheedle  and,  with  patronage,  to  buy  enough  voters  in 
their  respective  districts  to  keep  the  incumbents  in  their 
seats. 

And  the  division  of  the  people  into  more  than  1,700 
groups,  instead  of  the  four  or  five  groups  into  which 
they  should  be  divided,  brings  about  a  false  representa- 
tion in  congress.  The  parties  whose  votes  are  geo- 
graphically distributed  most  fortunately  gain  unjust  ad- 
vantages. In  each  district,  all  of  the  votes  in  excess  of 
a  bare  plurality  are  lost.  Two  hundred  thousand  more 
Democrats  could  move  into  Texas,  for  instance,  with- 
out changing  a  single  political  result.  Their  votes 
would  not  count  (because  they  could  not  count)  against 
Republican  votes  cast  in  other  States.  A  vote  cast  in 
any  congressional  district  does  not  count  against  an 
opposition  vote  in  any  other  district.  Thus  does  it  come 
about  that  by  dividing  the  country  into  more  than  400 
districts  we  sterilize  the  votes  of  more  than  400  groups 
of  citizens  —  the  votes  of  all  of  those  in  excess  of  a 
bare  plurality  in  each  district. 

Theoretically,  this  system  should  produce  the  best 
possible  results.  Apparently,  we  have  here  a  system 
that  tends  to  make  each  member  of  congress  do  his  best 
for  his  district;  and,  if  each  of  435  congressional  dis- 
tricts be  admirably  served,  it  might  seem  as  if  the  na- 
tion that  is  composed  of  these  districts  will  be  ad- 
mirably served.  But,  in  practice,  this  system  does 
not  so  work  out.  The  selfishness  of  each  district  is 
pitted  against  the  selfishness  of  each  of  the  other  dis- 
tricts. At  each  session  of  congress  a  majority  vote 
against  their  consciences  to  erect  public  buildings  that 


82        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

should  not  be  built,  to  dredge  creeks  that  should 
not  be  dredged,  and  to  do  scores  of  other  foolish 
acts  that  should  not  be  done,  involving  the  expenditure 
of  hundreds  of  millions,  merely  because  each  is  intent 
upon  winning  a  few  votes  by  giving  unjust  advantages 
to  his  district.  Each  man  knows  that  most  of  the  other 
appropriations  should  not  be  made,  as  he  knows  that  the 
appropriation  for  his  own  district  should  not  be  made, 
but  he  also  knows  that  unless  he  votes  for  all  the  steals, 
which  are  lumped  in  a  single  bill,  he  cannot  put  through 
his  own  steal. 

This  process  of  causing  perhaps  350  representatives 
to  vote  for  a  great  many  appropriations  that  they  know 
to  be  bad,  merely  to  get  appropriations  for  their  respec- 
tive districts  that  they  also  know  to  be  bad,  is  known  as 
"  log  rolling."  It  is  at  the  bottom  of  much  vicious  legis- 
lation. It  has  its  source  in  the  election  of  members  of 
congress  by  districts  and  States.  A  public  official 
should  be  elected  by  the  persons  whom  he  is  supposed  to 
serve.  A  member  of  congress  has  no  other  legitimate 
public  business  than  to  serve  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  The  people  of  the  United  States  should  there- 
fore elect  members  of  congress. 

The  names  of  all  the  congressional  candidates  in  the 
United  States  should  go  upon  a  blanket  ballot,  under 
party  and  state  designations.  The  candidates  of  each 
party  should  be  placed  in  a  separate  column,  and  the 
usual  provisions  should  be  made  for  voting  a  straight 
ticket  by  placing  a  cross  at  the  head  of  it.  With  six 
congressional  tickets  in  the  field,  the  congressional  ticket 
for  the  nation  would  be  six  columns  wide  and  perhaps 
four  feet  long.  The  voting  of  a  straight  ticket  for  435 
candidates,  however,  would  require  no  longer  than  it 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  83 

takes  to  make  a  cross,  and  the  substitution  of  a  dozen 
names  would  require  but  a  minute  or  two  more. 

The  criticism  of  this  plan  that  might  most  certainly  be 
expected  is  that  it  would  require  the  voter  to  pass  his 
opinion  upon  so  many  candidates  whom  he  did  not 
know,  since  the  voter  in  each  State  would  vote  for  the 
candidates  in  all  the  other  States.  This  criticism,  how- 
ever, is  not  valid.  In  the  first  place,  the  average  voter 
now  knows  next  to  nothing  of  the  congressional  candi- 
date for  whom  he  votes.  He  has  much  misinformation 
about  the  candidate  of  his  party  in  his  district,  but  little 
actual  information. 

But  the  fact  that  really  undermines  the  objection  is 
that  personal  knowledge  of  a  candidate  has  almost  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  question  of  whether  a  given  man 
should  vote  for  him.  Voters  are  too  frequently  misled 
by  shallow  pleas  in  favor  of  this  or  that  candidate,  who 
is  urged  upon  their  consideration  because  of  certain  real 
or  supposed  virtues.  Merely  because  a  man  is  a  "  fine 
father,"  a  "  good  husband  "  or  an  "  exemplary  citizen  " 
is ,  no  reason  why  anyone  should  vote  to  send  him  to 
congress.  The  casting  of  a  ballot  should  be  determined, 
first,  by  the  principles  for  which  the  candidate  stands; 
second,  by  the  probability  that,  if  elected,  he  will  stand 
by  his  principles. 

No  one  who  has  not  special  and  authenticated  in- 
formation with  regard  to  the  unfitness  of  a  candidate 
on  his  own  ticket  can  do  any  better  than  to  vote  for  all 
the  congressional  candidates  of  his  party  throughout  the 
United  States. 

In  this  matter,  political  principles  count  for  more  than 
men.  Good  political  principles  can  make  even  a  medio- 
cre member  of  congress  useful,  but  bad  political  princi- 


84        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

pies  cannot  be  made  good  by  the  best  man.  Therefore, 
each  .citizen  is  best  represented  in  congress  by  the  man 
who  best  expresses  the  citizen's  political  views,  quite  re- 
gardless of  whether  the  member  of  congress  is  person- 
ally agreeable  to  the  citizen  or  not. 

Party  representation  in  congress  should  be  in  exact 
proportion  to  party  strength  in  the  nation.  One  of  the 
greatest  evils  of  the  district  method  of  electing  mem- 
bers of  congress  is  that  it  oftentimes  enables  a  party  that 
polls  three-tenths  of  the  popular  vote  throughout  the 
nation  to  have  half  or  perhaps  more  than  half  of  the 
members  of  congress. 

Each  party  should  nominate  as  many  candidates  for 
congress  as  there  are  seats  to  be  filled,  or  as  the  party 
may  choose  to  contest.  The  election  having  been  held, 
the  percentage  of  the  total  vote  cast  by  each  party  should 
be  ascertained.  Then,  of  the  candidates  on  each  ticket 
receiving  the  greatest  number  of  votes,  enough  should 
be  set  apart  to  give  each  party  as  great  a  percentage  of 
the  membership  of  congress  as  it  had  of  the  popular 
vote,  and  the  number  so  set  apart  should  be  declared 
elected.  In  the  event  of  the  death  or  resignation  of  a 
member  of  congress,  his  place  should  be  filled  by  the 
candidate  of  his  party  who  received,  at  the  preceding 
election,  the  next  largest  number  of  votes.  This 
method  would  automatically  prevent  seats  from  remain- 
ing1 vacant  while  rendering  it  unnecessary  to  hold  special 
elections. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  should  be  the 
business  manager  of  the  nation.  He  should  be  nomi- 
nated and  elected  by  the  people  at  large,  without  the  inter- 
ference of  a  convention  or  an  electoral  college,  and  a 
clear  majority  of  all  votes  cast  should  be  required  to 
bring  about  his  election.  In  the  event  of  no  candidate  re- 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  85 

ceiving  a  majority  at  the  regular  election,  the  people 
should  immediately  proceed  to  choose  a  president  from 
the  leading  two  candidates.  And,  having  been  elected, 
the  President  should  be  subject  to  recall,  at  any  time, 
by  a  majority  of  those  voting. 

The  President  should  be  an  executive  officer.  He 
should  have  no  power  to  veto  acts  of  congress,  nor 
should  his  approval  be  necessary  to  the  validity  of  any 
congressional  act.  His  chief  duty  should  be  to  execute 
the  will  of  the  people,  as  expressed  through  acts  of 
congress.  In  performing  his  duties,  the  President,  as 
such,  should  have  no  "  policy  "  apart  from  the  policy 
of  congress.  Since  the  people  cannot  daily  outline  their 
attitudes  on  the  various  questions  that  present  them- 
selves, it  is  more  nearly  safe  to  entrust  congress  with 
the  task  of  declaring  what  is  the  popular  will  than  to 
permit  any  one  man,  however  exalted  his  station,  to  do 
so. 

This  means,  of  course,  the  diminishing  of  the  Presi- 
dent's power,  but  the  President's  power  should  be 
diminished.  The  people  of  the  United  States  have  only 
a  certain  amount  of  power.  It  must  be  vested  among 
one  or  more  men.  If  all  the  power  were  vested  in  the 
President,  he  would  be  an  absolute  monarch.  If  all 
the  power  were  vested  in  congress,  the  President  would 
be  a  weakling.  The  proper  line  of  division  is  to  place 
all  of  the  legislative  power  in  the  hands  of  congress, 
and  all  of  the  executive  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Presi- 
dent. We  now  place  all  of  the  executive  power  and 
part  of  the  legislative  power  in  the  hands  of  the  Presi- 
dent. The  Presidential  right  to  veto  acts  of  congress  is 
legislative  power.  To  the  extent  that  the  President  holds 
legislative  power,  congress  is  weakened.  To  the  extent 
that  the  President,  in  executing  the  laws  of  congress  is 


86        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

permitted  to  have  a  "  policy  "  apart  from  the  policy  of 
congress  —  to  that  extent,  too,  the  power  of  congress 
is  weakened.  And  the  people  should  never  permit  the 
legislative  power  of  congress  to  be  weakened. 

Since  the  people  must  delegate  their  legislative  power, 
it  is  much  more  nearly  safe  to  delegate  it  to  a  large 
body  of  men  than  it  is  to  delegate  it  to  one  man.  We  have 
chosen  to  delegate  it  to  congress.  If  we  cannot  trust  a 
majority  of  435  men,  we  cannot  trust  any  one  man. 
Nor  should  we  expect  our  business  to  be  transacted  if 
we  permit  one  man  in  the  White  House,  having  veto 
power,  to  count  for  as  much  as  two-thirds  of  the  mem- 
bers of  both  houses  of  congress  —  nearly  400  men  in 
all.  No  President  is  400  times  wiser  or  better  than  any 
man. 

Yet  the  presidency  should  be  by  no  means  shrunken 
to  an  impotent  office.  The  business  managership  of  a 
concern  capitalized  at  one  hundred  and  twenty  billion 
dollars  and  having  ninety  million  stockholders  would 
seem  to  call  for  about  all  the  ability  that  any  man  pos- 
sesses. Such  a  concern  is  the  United  States.  Congress 
should  be  its  board  of  directors.  The  President  should 
carry  out  the  will  of  the  board.  He  should  both  have 
and  make  frequent  use  of  the  right  to  enter  congress 
either  to  advise  or  to  consult.  The  President  and  con- 
gress should  work  in  close  touch  and  in  decent  harmony. 
But,  having  advised,  the  congress  and  not  the  President 
should  decide.  If  the  President  cannot  abide  by  the 
will  of  congress,  he  should  resign.  If  he  will  not  re- 
sign, either  he  or  the  congress  should  be  recalled. 

Under  a  democratic  constitution,  State  lines  would 
also  largely  disappear.  They  are  now  little  more  than 
relics  of  a  day  that  is  past.  We  came  into  this  union 
thirteen  struggling  little  States,  each  intensely  jealous 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  87 

of  its  own  rights  and  mightily  afraid  of  foreign  aggres- 
sion.    We  have  evolved  into  a  nation.     If  we  are  any- 
thing   to-day,    we    are    Americans,    rather    than    Mis-- 
sourians,  Californians  or  New  Mexicans.     We  are  no 
longer  jealous  of  each  other  or  afraid  of  our  neighbors. 
The  telegraph  and  the  railroad  have  brought  us  together, 
and  made  us  acquainted.     Our  needs  are  common  to  us; 
all  and  known  to  us  all.     No  longer  is  there  reason  why' 
each  State  should  make  its  own  laws  pertaining  to  sub- 
jects that  are  of  equal  interest  throughout  the  nation. 

It  is  absurd,  for  instance,  to  give  congress  the  right 
to  legislate  against  child  labor  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia, in  which  comparatively  few  children  live,  while 
forbidding  it  to  legislate  against  child  labor  where  al- 
most all  the  children  live. 

In  other  words,  there  are  certain  evils  that  we  all  rec- 
ognize as  evils:  child  labor;  the  overworking  of  women 
and  men ;  insanitary  and  inadequate  housing ;  adulterated 
and  poisoned  food;  robbery  in  all  of  its  various  mani- 
festations, either  through  the  watering  of  stocks  or  the 
exacting  of  exorbitant  prices  for  services  or  commodi- 
ties—  these  are  but  a  few  of  many  similar  subjects  that 
might  be  mentioned.  Yet  congress  is  forbidden  by 
the  Constitution  to  legislate  against  any  of  these  evils 
except  in  the  case  of  products  shipped  from  one  State  to 
another,  unless  the  evils  chance  to  exist  in  the  District 
of  Columbia.  We  who  live  elsewhere  must  apply  to 
our  respective  state  legislatures.  Each  battle  for  the 
improvement  of  conditions  must  therefore  be  fought  48 
times  before  it  becomes  effective  over  the  nation. 

Such  conditions  play  splendidly  into  the  hands  of 
wrongdoers,  but  they  harm  every  one  else.  If  child 
labor  is  harmful,  it  should  be  prohibited  throughout  the 
nation  by  a  single  act  of  congress.  If  bad  food  and 


88        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

bad  housing  are  not  to  our  liking  let  us  end  them  and 
at  once.  We  have  been  fighting  child  labor  in  state 
legislatures  almost  since  the  oldest  inhabitants  were 
children,  yet  child  labor  persists  with  little  prospect  that 
present  methods  will  end  it  before  the  birth  of  the  grand- 
children of  those  who  are  now  children.  In  other 
words,  state  lines  which,  in  the  beginning  were  set  up 
for  public  protection,  have  become  obsolete  for  their 
original  purposes;  and,  having  become  obsolete,  they 
have  been  seized  upon  by  grafters  of  various  kinds  to 
retard  and  delay  the  people  in  their  efforts  to  run  down 
grafters.  Matters  that  exclusively  concern  certain  com- 
munities may  well  be  left  to  the  consideration  of  local 
legislative  bodies,  but  congress  should  have  complete 
power  to  deal  with  any  subject  that  concerns  all  the 
people  of  all  the  States. 

Such  are  the  outlines  of  a  constitution  under  which 
the  people  could  actually  govern  themselves.  I  have 
done  no  more  than  sketch  the  outlines  because  it  would 
be  absurd  for  any  individual  to  presume  to  fill  in  the 
detail.  It  should  go  without  saying  that  women  as  well 
as  men  should  vote,  and  that  the  people  should  have  the 
right,  at  all  times,  to  amend  the  Constitution,  either  upon 
their  own  initiative  or  upon  the  initiative  of  congress. 
Judges  should  be  elected  by  the  people,  subject  to  popu- 
lar recall,  and  no  court  should  have  the  power  to  declare 
any  act  of  congress  unconstitutional.  No  court  should 
have  even  the  power  to  interpret  the  law.  If  the  law 
be  so  obscure  that  men  of  average  intelligence  cannot 
understand  it,  no  court  should  be  permitted  to  hazard  a 
guess  as  to  what  congress  meant  and  give  its  guess  all 
the  force  of  law.  Rather  should  the  court  return  such 
laws  to  congress  with  the  suggestion  that  they  be  phrased 
in  simple,  understandable  language. 


WHAT  WE  SHOULD  HAVE  89 

I  am  emboldened  to  believe  that  the  foregoing  sketch 
may  not  be  entirely  without  merit  from  the  fact  that 
each  part  of  it  is  now  in  successful  operation  somewhere 
in  the  world.  The  legislative  body  composed  of  but  a 
single  house  is,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  in  existence 
in  England.  Proportional  representation  in  congress 
is  in  effect  in  Switzerland.  France  and  Switzerland 
both  exalt  the  legislature  at  the  expense  of  the  executive, 
while  the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall  are  in 
successful  operation,  not  only  in  Switzerland  but  in  sev- 
eral American  States. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    BEST    CONSTITUTION,    IN    ITSELF,    WOULD    NOT    BE 

ENOUGH 

WE  need  a  new  constitution.  We  cannot  govern 
ourselves  with  the  one  we  have.  We  have  never 
governed  ourselves  with  the  one  we  have.  A  few  have 
always  governed  us  that  they  might  the  more  easily  prey 
upon  us.  We  have  had  worse  government  than  we 
should  have  had  under  a  better  constitution,  but  under 
the  best  constitution,  we  should  not  have  had  the  best 
government.  Something  more  than  a  good  constitution 
is  required  to  produce  good  government.  Back  of  the 
constitution  must  be  people  who  know  how  to  get  what 
they  want.  They  must  know  wherein  their  own  interests 
lie.  They  must  not  be  for  a  protective  tariff  merely  be- 
cause a  certain  group  of  grafters  can  use  a  protective 
tariff  in  their  business.  They  must  not  be  for  a  low  tariff 
merely  because  a  certain  other  group  of  grafters  cannot 
use  a  high  tariff  in  their  business.  They  must  know,  not 
merely  what  they  want,  but  how  to  get  it  through  gov- 
ernment. 

The  best  constitution  cannot  supply  such  wisdom  — 
or  any  wisdom.  No  good  constitution  can  do  more  than 
to  provide  the  governmental  machinery  with  which  the 
people  may  apply  such  wisdom  as  they  have.  The  ma- 
chinery is  necessary,  but  it  is  not  all.  If  we  have  noth- 
ing worth  while  to  express  through  government,  we 

90 


BEST  CONSTITUTION  NOT  ENOUGH       91 

should  not  be  surprised  at  government  that  is  not  worth 
while.  That  is  what  is  the  matter  with  the  people  of 
England,  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  we  may  say  the  peo- 
ple of  California,  Oregon,  and  Arizona.  The  people  of 
England  have  the  power  to  rule  themselves.  No  written 
constitution  is  in  their  way.  No  courts  are  in  their  way. 
Whatever  the  people  of  England  say  is  the  law  is  the  law. 
But  the  great  misfortune  of  the  people  of  England  is  that 
they  have  no  ideas  of  value  to  themselves  to  express 
through  the  law.  They  let  their  grafters  do  their  think- 
ing for  them  as  we  let  our  grafters  do  our  thinking  for 
us.  The  people  of  England,  possessing,  as  they  do,  the 
machinery  for  self-government,  are  like  business  men 
sitting  at  telephones  without  a  business  idea  to  transmit 
through  the  phones. 

Almost  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  people  of  Cali- 
fornia, Oregon  and  Arizona.  The  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  is  over  them,  so  they  are  not  so  nearly  free 
as  the  people  of  England.  But,  in  so  far  as  citizens  of 
States  can  be  made  free  by  state  constitutions  under 
which  self-government  is  possible  —  just  to  this  extent 
the  people  of  these  three  western  States  are  free.  All 
have  the  initiative  and  the  referendum.  The  people  of 
California  can  recall  any  official,  from  the  governor 
down,  except  the  judges,  and  the  people  of  Arizona  can 
recall  their  judges.  Yet  the  people  of  these  States  are 
making  but  small  use  of  their  great  powers  because  they 
do  not  know  how  to  use  them.  Rich  men  rule  in  Cali- 
fornia, Oregon  and  Arizona.  Rich  men  rule  because 
the  rest  of  the  people  accept  the  fundamental  political 
ideas  of  the  rich  and  vote  to  perpetuate  them. 

In  some  of  the  following  chapters,  I  shall  dwell  upon 
certain  great  matters  of  governmental  policy  and  public 
habit  that  would  have  produced  bad  government  if  per- 


92        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

formed  under  the  best  constitution.  Nothing  that  we 
do  is  worse  for  us  than  to  permit  the"  newspapers  to 
make  our  political  issues  and  our  political  heroes  for 
us.  Most  of  the  great  newspapers  are  controlled,  in  one 
way  or  another,  by  the  great  grafters.  They  may  know 
how  the  great  grafters  could  .be  caught,  but  if  they  do 
know,  we  may  be  quite  sure  they  will  not  tell  us.  Each 
day  they  pretend  to  tell  us,  but  upon  no  day  do  they  tell 
us. 

We  have  followed  all  the  advice  they  have  given  with- 
out improving  conditions.  We  have  even  stultified  our- 
selves to  follow  their  advice.  We  have  elected  Republi- 
cans and  then  kicked  them  out  to  put  in  Democrats. 
We  have  declared  for  a  high  tariff  and  then  for  a  low 
tariff.  We  have  done  precisely  as  we  have  been  told  to 
do.  Yet  nobody  can  tell  from  the  burden  upon  his  back 
which  party  is  in  power.  What  is  promised  this  year 
is  withheld  next  year.  The  cost  of  living  is  always 
"  about  "  to  come  down,  but  it  never  comes  down.  Yet, 
one  group  of  grafter  newspapers  or  another  are  always 
telling  us  that  we  have  done  precisely  right.  When  we 
elect  Republicans,  the  Republican  newspapers  commend 
our  judgment.  When  we  elect  Democrats,  the  Demo- 
cratic newspapers  commend  our  judgment.  We  never 
commend  our  own  judgment,  because  we  have  no  reason 
to  feel  satisfied  with  what  we  have  done.  We  are 
therefore  usually  engaged  in  voting  "  against "  some 
party,  rather  than  "  for  "  another.  That  is  because  less 
thought  is  required  to  repudiate  a  party  that  has  be- 
trayed us  than  to  choose  another  that  will  not  betray  us. 
The  grafters,  through  the  newspapers,  take  advantage 
of  this  state  of  mind  and  lead  the  public  back  and  forth, 
from  one  capitalist  political  party  to  another. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   PRESS   AND   THE   TARIFF 

\  \  ARON  BURR  once  undertook  to  define  judge-made 
J  /TL  law.  "  The  law,"  he  said,  "  is  whatever  is  boldly 
/  asserted  and  plausibly  maintained." 

Burr  might  have  gone  much  further  and  still  been 
within  the  facts.  He  might  have  said  that  public 
opinion  is  whatever  is  boldly  asserted  and  plausibly  main- 
tained by  most  of  the  newspapers  and  magazines. 

Nobody  has  ever  come  within  gunshot  of  adequately 
estimating  the  power  of  printer's  ink.  It  is  a  power  so 
great  that,  in  comparison,  every  other  power  in  a  repub- 
lic seems  puny.  We  hear  much  of  the  money  power, 
but  money  without  ink  has  no  power.  Money  is  power- 
ful only  because  it  can  buy  ink.  Give  me  all  the  ink 
and  Rockefeller  all  the  money  and  I  will  undertake  to 
create  a  public  opinion  that  will  render  Rockefeller's 
money  as  sterile  as  a  stone.  That  public  opinion  is  so 
often  monstrously  wrong  is  because  the  little  class  that 
owns  most  of  the  money  also  owns  most  of  the  ink. 

It  may  be  pleasing  to  the  rising  generation  to  know 
how  this  game  is  worked.  It  may  beguile  the  mind  of 
youth  to  see  the  stuff  of  which  our  greatest  political 
heroes  are  made  and  to  behold  the  manner  in  which  the 
blackest  lies  are  palmed  off  as  whitest  truth.  If  so,  let 
us  give  heed  to  Washington,  for  it  is  there  that  our 
heroes  are  spawned.  Washington,  always  politically 
pregnant,  never  is  without  a  new  hero  in  process  of  crea- 

93 


94        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

tion.  Great  uncertainty  usually  exists  as  to  who  shall 
be  born  next.  Great  rivalry  always  exists  as  to  who 
shall  be  next  born.  A  beautiful  fairy  story  was  once 
written  about  the  competitive  eagerness  with  which  the 
little  children  in  Babyland  strive  to  be  wafted  into  this 
world.  I  always  think  of  this  story  when  I  am  in  Wash- 
ington. In  the  days  when  William  Sulzer  — "  the  same 
old  Bill  " —  was  a  Tammany  congressman,  it  was  a  gor- 
geous sight  to  see  William  soothing  himself  with  the 
belief  that  he  was  about  to  be  born  into  the  hero  class. 
In  those  days,  it  was  Sulzer's  pleasing  custom  to 
promenade  down  "  Peacock  Alley,"  at  the  New 
Willard,  at  the  precise  after-dinner  moment  when  he  be- 
lieved most  eyes  would  be  upon  him.  Being  227  miles 
from  his  poverty-stricken  New  York  constituents,  of 
course  he  wore  evening  dress,  including  a  velvet  waist- 
coat. Naturally,  also,  he  walked  slowly,  as  great  men 
should.  And,  having  navigated  the  "  Alley,"  it  was  his 
custom  to  take  up  a  position  against  one  of  the  imitation 
marble  columns  in  the  lobby,  to  be  greeted  by  whomso- 
ever should  see  fit.  It  was  indeed  an  inspiring  sight  to 
see  him  gazing  solemnly  at  the  floor  while  gentlemen 
having  the  wit  of  kittens  begged  his  indulgence  as  if  he 
were  a  king.  It  was  indeed  a  grand  sight  —  but  it  is  no 
more,  for  William  has  gone  from  Washington,  and  other 
imitation  heroes  are  leaning  against  the  imitation  marble 
columns  at  the  Willard. 

Yet,  some  of  the  imitation  heroes  seldom  or  never  go 
to  the  Willard.  The  Hon.  Oscar  W.  Underwood  is  one 
of  these.  The  Honorable  Oscar,  as  the  father  of  a  tariff 
law  that  bears  his  name,  has  become  too  exclusive  to 
mingle  with  the  cheap  embryo  heroes  that  swarm  around 
taverns.  Gentlemen  who  wish  to  see  him  will  have  to 
go  where  he  is  —  he  will  meet  them  at  no  half-way 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF  95 

house.  Gentlemen  who  wish  to  see  him  will  also  have 
considerable  trouble  to  find  him,  for  Mr.  Underwood  has 
become  so  rich  in  ink-made  renown  that,  in  at  least  one 
respect,  he  resembles  gentlemen  who  are  money-rich  — 
he  has  many  official  abiding  places. 

As  a  mere  congressman,  he  has  a  right  to  an  office  in  the 
great  marble  House  Office  Building,  but  as  the  chairman 
of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  he  does  not  exercise 
it. 

As  the  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee, 
he  has  a  right  to  an  office  in  that  splendid  committee 
room  in  which  so  many  stupendous  steals  have  been 
engineered;  but,  as  the  leader  of  the  Democratic  ma- 
jority in  the  House,  he  does  not  exercise  it. 

Anyone  who  wishes  to  find  Mr.  Underwood  will  have 
to  ask  questions  as  he  cannot  be  found  in  either  of  the 
afore-mentioned  offices,  nor  is  his  name  upon  the  glass 
of  any  door.  Anyone  who  asks  questions  will  even- 
tually be  informed  that  the  object  of  his  search  may  be 
found  only  by  following  a  narrow  hallway,  which  skirts 
the  east  side  of  the  chamber  in  which  the  house  of  repre- 
sentatives sits. 

This  hallway,  which  is  bounded  on  one  end  by  a 
statue  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  is  bounded  on  the  other  by 
a  live  negro.  This  negro,  upon  request,  will  give  the 
information  that  Mr.  f  Underwood's  office  is  inside  the 
unmarked  door  beside  the  elevator  shaft;  and,  quite 
likely,  the  negro  will  rap  on  the  frosted  glass  and  bring 
to  the  door  Mr.  Underwood's  secretary.  And,  in  a  lit- 
tle room,  no  larger  than  many  a  grocer's  parlor,  bereft 
of  all  the  dimensions  and  gorgeous  upholstery  that  little 
men  require  to  make  them  seem  large,  Mr.  Underwood 
sits. 

Mr.    Underwood    is    a    very    interesting   gentleman, 


96        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

partly  because  fate  may  sometime  catapult  him  into  the 
White  House,  and  partly  because  of  his  personal  quali- 
ties. I  should  say  that  the  department  store  business 
lost  a  great  floorwalker  when  Mr.  Underwood  set  his 
feet  upon  the  road  that  led  him  into  politics.  He  is  a 
perfectly  sanitary  looking  man  of  52  years.  When  he 
walks,  he  has  the  soft,  measured,  confident  tread  of  a 
floorwalker.  His  hair  is  combed  just  as  it  should  be,  his 
soft  eyes  beam  in  precisely  the  proper  way.  Though 
we  were  talking  tariff  and  such  things,  -the  thought  was 
always  in  my  mind  that  the  next  moment  he  would  say : 
"  Three  aisles  over  at  the  rear  of  the  store." 

My  particular  mission  to  Mr.  Underwood  was  to  ascer- 
tain from  so  eminent  an  authority  exactly  wherein  and  to 
what  extent  the  tariff  law  of  1913,  then  new,  would  ease 
and  simplify  the  common  people  problem  of  keeping 
alive.  I  knew  that,  in  this  respect,  the  Democratic  plat- 
form upon  which  Mr.  Wilson  was  elected  and  to  which 
Mr.  Underwood  subscribed,  had  promised  much.  That 
platform  had  bitterly  upbraided  the  Republican  party  for 
its  "  attempts  to  escape  responsibility  for  present  condi- 
tions by  denying  that  they  are  due  to  a  protective 
tariff."  If  the  Republican  tariff  were  the  cause  of  the 
high  cost  of  living,  or  much  of  it,  it  therefore  seemed  a 
fair  conclusion  that  the  destruction  of  the  Republican 
tariff  would  do  away  with  the  high  cost  of  living,  or 
much  of  it. 

But,  before  we  enter  the  actual  presence  of  the  gen- 
tleman who  should  be  known  from  one  end  of  the  coun- 
try to  the  other  as  "  The  Overestimated  Mr.  Underwood," 
let  us  indulge  in  certain  reflections  that  may  give  us 
brief  nourishment.  A  number  of  years  ago,  when  Mr. 
Roosevelt  was  President,  his  proposals  did  not  always 
meet  with  unanimous  endorsement,  even  among  radicals. 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF  97 

Some  radicals  believed  Mr.  Roosevelt  did  not  go  far 
enough;  others  believed  he  went  too  far.  But  both 
kinds  of  radicals  heartily  united  in  an  appreciation  that 
took  substantially  this  form :  "  Well,  thank  God,  we 
have  at  least  progressed  to  the  point  where  a  politician 
who  wants  to  win  public  favor  must  talk  about  some- 
thing else  than  the  tariff."  In  other  words,  these  simple 
radicals  believed  that  the  fraudulent  old  tariff  issue  had 
finally  been  put  on  the  shelf. 

Kindly  observe,  now,  how  the  power  to  determine  just 
what  use  shall  be  made  of  printer's  ink  also  determines 
what  people  shall  think  about.  After  the  defeat  of 
Bryan  in  1908,  certain  great  Democratic  newspapers  be- 
gan a  concerted  campaign  to  bring  the  tariff  question  to 
life.  In  this  campaign  the  New  York  World  took  the 
lead.  First,  there  were  brief  editorials  of  regret  that 
the  good  old  days  of  Grover  Cleveland  were  past,  coupled 
with  the  expression  of  the  fervent  belief  that  if  any 
Democrat  of  national  reputation  would  go  to  the  front 
on  the  tariff  issue,  the  people  would  rally  to  his  support 
and  restore  the  Democratic  party  to  power.  What  good 
ever  came  to  the  common  people  as  the  result  of  the 
Democratic  party  coming  into  power,  the  World  did  not 
pause  to  explain;  newspapers  that  are  engaged  in  a 
"  campaign  of  education  "  never  take  the  trouble  to  tell 
the  people  anything  new  that  is  true. 

At  any  rate,  the  World  continued  to  harp  on  the 
tariff  until  it  broke  forth  in  a  series  of  cartoons  en- 
titled "The  Empty  Market  Basket."  "The  Empty 
Market  Basket "  was  an  attempt  to  visualize  the  twin 
horrors  of  American  life  —  the  high  cost  of  living  and 
the  Payne  tariff  law.  The  visualization  was  brought 
about  by  presenting  a  picture  of  a  woman  carrying  a 
market  basket.  The  woman  of  course  wore  a  shawl 


98        OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

over  her  head,  was  tagged  by  two  or  three  half -starved 
children,  and  her  basket  was  empty.  A  brace  of  pups 
labeled  "High  Tariff"  and  "High  Cost  of  Living" 
were  presented  in  the  act  of  wrestling  £>n  the  grass  with 
a  couple  of  pounds  of  ham  and  bologna  sausage  that 
they  had  hooked  from  the  basket.  The  changes  were( 
rung,  day  after  day,  upon  some  such  scenery  as  this, 
while  editorials  in  adjoining  columns  blared  and  bleated 
about  the  tariff  being  a  "  tax  upon  poverty."  If  we 
could  only  get  rid  of  this  terrible  tariff,  we  should  be 
all  right.  The  cost  of  living  would  come  down,  a  poor 
man  could  look  his  grocer  in  the  eye  without  fainting 
away,  and  life  for  the  average  mortal  would  take  on  a 
rosier  hue. 

Ink  finally  wrought  its  miracle.  That  which  the  rad- 
icals of  a  few  years  before  believed  could  never  take 
place  again  once  more  became  a  reality.  Old  Man 
Tariff,  the  hero  of  a  hundred  wars  (all  fakes)  was  back 
on  the  stage  doing  his  ancient  monologue.  Close  ob- 
servers could  see  that  his  cheeks  were  as  hollow  as  his 
promises,  that  his  eyes  were  sunken  in  because  there  were 
no  brains  behind  them  to  keep  them  in  place,  and  that 
to  send  this  old  faker  to  do  battle  with  the  high  cost  of 
living  would  be  to  invite  the  gods  to  order  the  whole 
population  into  idiot  asylums.  But  the  ink  pots  kept 
up  their  clamor  about  the  absolute  power  of  a  lower  tariff 
to  reduce  the  cost  of  living,  and  the  fates  were  kind  to 
the  tariff  fakers.  The  fates  were  kind  because  they 
caused  Mr.  Roosevelt  to  break  with  Mr.  Taft  and  thus 
divide  into  two  groups  those  who  believed  in  a  protec- 
tive tariff.  Through  this  breach  the  gentlemen  who 
had  wept  so  copiously  into  "  The  Empty  Market  Basket  " 
crept  to  power  —  and  reduced  the  tariff. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  listen  to  Mr.  Underwood 


LTHE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF.          99 

with  understanding.  The  negro  taps  on  the  unlettered 
door.  The  secretary  opens  it.  We  enter.  We  do  not 
at  first  see  Underwood.  Small  wonder.  He  is  not  in 
the  direct  line  of  vision.  He  is  over  in  a  corner  behind 
a  desk  that  is  in  perfect  order.  Mr.  Underwood  is  also 
in  perfect  order.  I  must  say  again  that  a  better  bar- 
bered  man  never  pointed  the  way  to  the  silk  counter. 

I  first  told  Mr.  Underwood  that  I  understood  that  his 
new  tariff  law  was  to  bring  about  a  great  reduction  in 
the  cost  of  living.  I  had  understood  no  such  thing  from 
any  responsible  person,  but  I  simply  thought  I  would 
throw  out  the  line  and  see  how  far  he  would  go  with  it. 
He  did  not  go  far.  As  compared  with  the  old  "  Empty 
Market  Basket "  brigade  he  hardly  moved.  He  said 
the  new  law  would  reduce  the  cost  of  living  "  a  good 
deal."  I  asked  him  what  he  meant  by  a  good  deal. 
He  did  not  care  to  say.  I  did  care  to  have  him  say.  I 
pressed  him  to  be  more  nearly  definite.  He  said  he? 
could  not  be  more  nearly  definite  —  that  he  could  not 
speak  in  terms  of  money  because  one  family  might  save 
one  sum  and  another  family  a  different  sum,  depending 
upon  their  respective  manners  of  living.  I  sought  to 
sweep  away  this  defense  by  asking  him  to  estimate  in 
dollars  the  amount  that  would  be  saved  annually  by  the 
American  wage-worker's  family,  whose  income  is  $500 
a  year. 

Mr.  Underwood  would  not  answer.  He  would  like  to 
answer  me  —  he  assured  me  so.  But  he  could  not  even 
approximately  answer  such  a  question  unless  he  were  to 
make  a  careful  calculation  covering  the  amounts  of  food 
and  the  kinds  of  food,  the  amounts  of  clothing  and  the 
kinds  of  clothing  that  are  consumed  by  average  Ameri- 
can families,  and  then  figuring  up  the  saving  on  the 
basis  of  the  new  law  in  comparison  with  the  old.  I  told 


ioo       OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

him  that  I  did  not  seek  exact  figures,  which  nobody  could 
give  after  any  amount  of  calculation,  but  approximate 
figures.  I  sought  to  help  him  along  by  asking  what  would 
be  the  annual  saving  on  $375  a  year  spent  for  food  and 
clothing,  that  being  about  the  sum  that  $500  a  year  fami- 
lies have  after  paying  their  house  rent.  Still  he  sat  in 
his  chair  and  gave  me  the  wise  statesman  look  combined 
with  silence. 

Then  I  tried  him  with  a  different  hook.  I  asked  him 
if  he  believed  an  annual  saving  of  $25  would  seem  "  a 
good  deal "  to  a  family  in  receipt  of  $500  a  year.  He 
said  he  did.  I  then  asked  him  if,  in  asserting  that  the 
new  tariff  would  reduce  the  cost  of  living  "  a  good  deal," 
it  would  be  just  to  understand  him  as  meaning  a  saving  of 
approximately  $25  a  year.  But  he  said  he  did  not  want 
to  be  quoted  at  all  in  terms  of  money.  I  should  have 
been  glad  to  carry  the  grand  news  that,  having  won  a 
great  victory  at  the  polls  in  1912,  each  poor  American 
family  might  expect  to  have  the  cost  of  living  reduced 
almost  50  cents  a  week,  but  I  could  get  no  Underwood 
authority  for  it. 

So  I  passed  on  to  other  phases  of  the  same  subject. 
I  asked  him  upon  what  articles  this  possible  saving  of 
50  cents  a  week  might  be  expected.  I  shall  never  for- 
get his  answer.  He  said:  "The  cost  of  vegetables 
along  the  Canadian  frontier  will  be  considerably  re- 
duced." 

Now,  anybody  who  knows  anything  about  the  Cana- 
dian frontier  and  the  sparse  Canadian  population  that 
fringes  the  edge  of  Canada,  knows  exactly  what  this 
promise  held  forth.  Anybody  who  knows  anything 
about  the  export  vegetable  product  of  Canada  knows  that 
free  importation  of  Canadian  garden  truck  wquld  have 
about  the  same  effect  upon  the  prices  of  similar  products 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF         101 

in  the  United  States  that  a  squirtgun  full  of  water  would 
have  upon  the  temperature  of  hell.  In  parliamentary 
phrase,  I  called  Mr.  Underwood's  attention  to  this  fact 
which,  in  substance,  he  readily  admitted.  He  conceded 
my  contention  that  Canadian  products  could  not  pene- 
trate more  than  twenty  or  thirty  miles  into  the  interior, 
as  he  also  admitted  that  the  quantity  would  be  insuffi- 
cient to  supply  more  than  a  few  families  close  to  the  bor- 
der. 

"  But,"  said  Mr.  Underwood,  "  we  may  get  some  pota- 
toes from  Ireland.  We  have  long  imported  Bermuda 
onions  into  this  country,  and  I  should  not  jwphder  if  we 
should  get  quite  a  lot  of  stuff  from  -Bermuda-  ^nji,  £s  I. 
said,  from  Ireland."  '•«*/'•"•  s...  • 

Don't  laugh  —  go  on.     Hear  what  the  gentleman  said. 

"  The  cheaper  grades  of  cotton  will  be  reduced  a  third, 
the  cost  of  woolen  goods,  including  men's  clothing,  will 
be  substantially  reduced,  and  I  expect  the  price  of  sugar 
to  be  reduced  almost  if  not  quite  one-half.  But  sugar 
will  not  reach  the  bottom  price  for  three  years,  and  the 
reductions  in  cotton  and  woolen  goods  will  hardly  be 
felt  before  next  summer." 

"  Mr.  Underwood,"  said  I,  "  I  believe  the  Democratic 
party  has  made  an  honest  reduction  of  the  tariff.  As  a 
result,  the  cost  of  living  may  or  may  not  be  materially 
reduced,  depending  upon  whether  the  trusts,  jobbers, 
retailers  and  other  gentlemen  are  able  to  absorb  the  re- 
ductions or  whether  they  are  compelled  to  pass  them 
along  to  the  people.  But,  assuming  that  the  reductions 
will  be  passed  along  and  that  the  cost  of  living  will  be 
materially  reduced,  can  you  show  me  wherein  the  people 
will  be  helped?" 

Mr.  Underwood  looked  up  from  his  clasped  hands  in 
astonishment. 


102       OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

"  Isn't  the  high  cost  of  living  what  the  people  are 
crying  out  against  ?  "  he  asked.  "  Will  not  they  be  bene- 
fitted  if  the  cost  of  living  be  reduced?  " 

I  admitted  the  obvious  fact  that  the  people  were  op- 
posed to  high  living  costs  and  in  favor  of  lower  ones. 
I  also  asserted  that  the  people  did  not  know  what  caused 
their  misery  and  therefore  did  not  know  what  would  cure 
it.  I  offered  in  proof  the  peculiar  political  fate  that  has 
followed  Mr.  Bryan.  In  1896,  the  cost  of  living  was  so 
low  that  Mr.  Bryan  urged  the  people  to  turn  the  coun- 
try over  to  him  in  order  that,  with  free  silver,  he  might 
lincrease,  tl^e;  .cost-  of  all  commodities,  including  labor. 
The  people  declined,,  but  the  trusts  and  other  agencies  re- 
;moi<ecj, 'the; low ;  prices  of  which  Mr.  Bryan  complained. 
They  removed  them  so  completely  that  no  vestige  of 
them  was  left.  They  removed  low  prices  so  completely 
that  Mr.  Bryan  and  his  party,  having  formerly  sought 
power  to  increase  prices,  sought  power  in  1912  to  lower 
them.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Bryan,  in  campaigning  for 
Wilson  in  1912,  asked  that  his  party  be  given  power  to 
destroy  the  high  prices  that  in  1896  he  said  were  desir- 
able. And  the  irony  of  fate  gave  Mr.  Bryan  his  great- 
est political  office  for  the  part  he  took  in  1912  in  trying 
to  restore  the  low  prices  against  which  he  protested  so 
bitterly  in  1896. 

"  Suppose  your  new  law/'  said  I  to  Mr.  Underwood, 
"  were  to  make  the  cost  of  living  as  low  as  it  was  in 
1896.  The  people  were  desperate  in  1896.  Does  your 
law  contain  anything  that  would  make  them  happier 
now?" 

We  had  come  somewhere  near  the  nub  of  the  question. 
The  people  are  never  prosperous  whether  the  cost  of 
living  is  high  or  low.  As  a  mass,  their  wages  are  just 
enough  to  cover  the  cost  of  living  and  no  more.  Mr, 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF          103 

Underwood,  as  a  man  of  affairs,  might  be  presumed  to 
know  these  facts.  Apparently  he  did  know  them,  be- 
cause he  ran  from  them  like  a  deer. 

"  I  have  not  time  to  go  into  this  matter,"  he  said.  "  I 
am  very  busy  now.  Here  are  copies  of  two  speeches  that 
I  made  on  the  tariff  question.  They  set  forth  my  views 
in  full.  You  may  have  them,  if  you  like." 

"  Do  these  speeches  answer  my  question?  "  I  asked  as 
I  reached  for  the  copies  of  the  Congressional  Record 
that  he  handed  to  me. 

"  No,"  he  replied. 

"Well,  don't  you  care  to  answer  it?"  I  asked.  "It 
would  seem  to  be  worth  answering.  Low  prices  made 
only  misery  in  1896.  If  your  law  contains  something 
that  will  not  make  low  prices  mean  misery  now,  it  will 
take  you  but  a  moment  to  say  what  that  something  is. 
It  will  take  even  less  time  for  you  to  say  that  that  '  some- 
thing '  is  in  your  law  without  describing  it." 

"  I  am  very  busy,"  repeated  Mr.  Underwood.  "  I 
could  not  go  into  that  matter  without  more  time." 

Now,  we  may  as  well  clear  the  decks  and  get  into  ac- 
tion. Mr.  Underwood  would  not  have  had  time  to  an- 
swer if  I  had  had  the  power  to  give  him  a  thou- 
sand years  and  had  given  them  to  him.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  as  soon  as  I  shifted  to  a  less  pestiferous  phase  of 
the  subject,  Mr.  Underwood  continued  to  talk  to  me  for 
half  an  hour.  But  no  Democrat  has  any  time  to  talk 
when  he  is  asked  why  the  great  mass  of  the  people  are 
able  to  get  only  a  bare  living  whether  the  cost  of  living 
be  high  or  low. 

In  an  article  entitled  "  What  the  Tariff  Fight  Does 
Not  Mean  to  You,"  which  was  printed  in  the  June 
(1911)  number  of  Pearson's  Magazine,  I  had  the  honor 
to  observe  that  the  tariff  issue,  so  far  as  it  pertained  to 


104      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

workingmen,  was  a  fraud.  The  facts  remain  the  same 
as  I  then  stated  them.  The  tariff  issue  is  of  importance 
only  to  the  members  of  the  capitalist  class.  With  them 
it  is  a  very  real  issue.  It  is  a  real  issue,  because  the 
tariff,  or  the  lack  of  it,  determines  which  of  the  capital- 
ist class  shall  obtain  the  lion's  share  of  what  the  work- 
ing class  produces. 

Here  is  the  situation:  The  working  class  of  the 
United  States  annually  produces  a  certain  amount  of 
wealth.  Part  of  this  wealth  goes  back  to  the  workers 
in  the  form  of  wages.  The  scramble  of  capitalists, 
which  they  seek  to  dignify  with  the  name  of  "  business," 
is  to  get  the  money  that  the  workers  have  received. 
This  money  can  be  obtained  only  by  selling  the  workers' 
goods.  The  more  the  goods  can  be  sold  for,  the  greater 
the  profit  that  can  be  obtained.  If  the  goods  offered  by 
a  certain  class  of  manufacturers  come  in  competition 
with  foreign  goods,  a  protective  tariff  keeps  prices  and 
profits  high  by  excluding  the  foreign  wares.  Such  capi- 
talists are  naturally  in  favor  of  a  high  protective  tariff. 
As  mere  business  men,  they  would  be  fools  if  they  were 
not. 

But  there  are  many  American  business  men  whose 
goods  do  not  come  in  competition  with  foreign  wares. 
These  men  are  placed  in  a  most  uncomfortable  predica- 
ment by  a  high  tariff.  It  is  easy  to  see  why.  The  work- 
ing class  has  only  a  certain  amount  of  wages  with  which 
to  buy  goods.  If  a  few  protected  interests,  dealing  in 
the  necessities  of  life,  are  enabled  by  the  tariff  to  charge 
extortionate  prices,  the  working  class  has  only  a  small 
sum  with  which  to  buy  the  products  of  the  gentlemen 
who  cannot  use  a  tariff  in  their  business.  Men  who 
have  but  little  can  pay  but  little  and  buy  but  little,  so 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF          105 

the  unprotected  interests  are  forever  throwing  their  goods 
upon  a  poverty-stricken  market. 

Such  business  men  would  be  fools  if  they  were  not  in 
favor  of  a  low  tariff.  A  low  tariff  would  mean  that 
their  customers  would  have  more  money  with  which  to 
buy  and  could  therefore  be  compelled  to  pay  higher 
prices.  They  would  have  more  money  with  which  to 
buy  because  they  would  not  have  been  so  much  depleted 
by  the  high  tariff  gentlemen. 

The  question  of  tariff  or  no  tariff  is  of  no  funda- 
mental importance  to  the  working  class,  because  wages 
always  rise  and  fall  with  the  cost  of  living,  and  whether 
this  cost  be  high  or  low,  nothing  is  left  for  the  average 
worker.  When  wages  and  the  cost  of  living  were  low, 
in  the  early  'go's,  the  American  working  class  would 
have  been  overjoyed  if  it  could  have  believed  that,  in  a 
few  years,  wages  would  be  as  high  as  they  are  now. 
But  the  working  class  is  not  now  overjoyed  because  the 
cost  of  living  has  so  increased  that  nothing  is  left  of  the 
high  wages.  The  working  class  can  be  prosperous  only 
when  wages  and  the  cost  of  living  are  far  apart  —  when 
the  cost  of  living  is  far  below  wages  —  yet  under  the 
capitalist  system,  the  wages  of  the  average  man  are  fixed 
by  the  cost  of  his  living  and  never  exceed  it. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  why  this  is  so.  Capitalists 
buy  labor  as  they  buy  anything  else  —  for  as  little  as 
they  can.  They  even  talk  about  the  "  labor  market,"  as 
they  talk  about  the  pig  iron  market  or  the  lumber  market. 
Workingmen  are  offered  as  little  as  capitalists  believe 
they  will  accept.  Workingmen  are  always  so  much 
more  numerous  than  jobs  that  laborers  are  always  com- 
pelled to  compete  with  each  other  for  jobs.  Working- 
men  who  are  out  of  jobs  are  always  willing  to  work  for 


io6       OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

what  it  costs  to  live  on  the  lowest  scale  they  will  consent 
to  live.  It  is  better  to  work  for  a  poor  living  than  it  is 
to  have  no  living.  Thus  the  man  who  has  no  work 
fixes  the  wage  of  the  man  who  is  at  work.  The  man 
who  is  at  work  must  agree  to  work  for  wages  that  rep- 
resent only  a  bare  living,  or  the  man  out  of  work  will 
take  his  job. 

Nor  is  there,  under  the  capitalist  system,  any  escape 
for  the  working  class  from  such  conditions.  Times 
would  be  better  if  there  were  two  jobs  for  each  man  in- 
stead of  two  men  for  each  job,  but  under  the  capitalist 
system,  there  can  never  be  two  jobs,  nor  even  one  job  for 
each  man.  A  man  employed  implies  the  existence  of  a 
market  for  his  product.  The  working  class  constitutes 
the  market  for  the  great  bulk  of  the  goods  that  are  pro- 
duced. Diminish  the  working  class  and  the  market  is 
thereby  automatically  reduced  correspondingly.  So 
long  as  private  individuals  own  the  industrial  machinery 
of  the  country,  so  long  will  workingmen  be  compelled 
to  accept  wages  that  represent  only  the  cost  of  living. 

This  is  so  plain  that  it  would  seem  as  if  the  mere  state- 
ment of  it  would  be  sufficient  to  carry  with  it  conviction. 
Who  has  observed  the  rise  and  fall  of  wages  without 
noting  that  the  cost  of  living  fixes  wages?  The  present 
high  wages  are  due  to  nothing  but  the  high  cost  of  living. 
Whoever  heard  of  workingmen  striking  for  grand 
pianos,  Persian  rugs,  and  college  educations  for  their 
children?  Who  has  not  heard  of  workingmen  striking 
for  enough  wages  to  keep  their  families  alive?  When 
men  can  live  on  their  wages,  they  never  strike  for  money 
to  put  into  the  bank.  Workingmen  who  should  strike 
for  money  to  put  into  the  bank  would  be  frowned  upon 
by  the  community.  Who  would  be  willing  to  walk 
five  miles  a  day  to  and  from  his  work  merely  to  enable 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF  -       107 

striking  street  car  men  to  put  money  into  the  bank? 
Not  one  man  in  a  thousand.  We  are  precisely  as  igno- 
rant as  that.  If  the  whole  working  class  would  strike 
to  put  money  into  the  bank,  the  working  class  would 
have  money  in  the  bank.  Nothing  can  defeat  the  work- 
ing class  except  the  working  class  itself.  It  comprises 
more  than  90  per  cent,  of  the  population.  It  includes 
all  of  the  brawn  in  the  country.  It  includes  most  of  the 
brains  in  the  country.  There  are  not  many  brains  in  the 
country,  but  such  as  there  are  belong  to  the  working 
class.  Not  enough  exceptions  exist  to  be  noted.  Every 
man  of  great  social  value  comes  from  the  working  class. 
They  are  the  ones  who  invent  whatever  is  invented  and 
who  run  whatever  is  run.  Edison  came  from  the  work- 
ing class.  J.  P.  Morgan  did  not. 

The  only  remedy  for  this  situation  is  that  which  is 
provided  by  Socialism.  The  working  class  of  this  coun- 
try is  producing  great  value  and  getting  little  of  it. 
Every  man  in  his  senses  knows  it.  Mr.  Morgan  knows 
it.  Mr.  Ryan  knows  it.  George  W.  Perkins  knows  it. 
Even  Oscar  W.  Underwood  knows  it.  I  should  dislike 
to  rest  the  case  of  Socialism  upon  any  statement  made 
by  the  over-estimated  Mr.  Underwood,  but  I  cannot 
forego  the  temptation  to  prove  by  quoting  from  one  of 
the  tariff  speeches  that  he  gave  me  that  he  knows  only 
too  well  that  American  manufacturers  are  skinning 
American  workingmen  to  the  bone. 

The  speech  from  which  I  shall  quote  was  made  by 
Mr.  Underwood  on  March  25,  1909.  The  Payne  tariff 
bill  was  under  discussion.  Mr.  Underwood  was  seek- 
ing to  show  that  the  bill  was  a  fraud.  The  particular 
point  that  he  wished  to  puncture  was  the  contention  that 
a  protective  tariff  was  necessary  to  enable  American 
manufacturers  to  compete  with  their  foreign  rivals. 


io8      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

Mr.  Underwood  contended  that  the  profits  of  American 
manufacturers  were  so  large  that  they  needed  no  pro- 
tection. •  Mr.  Underwood  contended  that  American 
manufacturers  paid  their  employees  so  much  less  than 
they  earned  that  they  need  fear  no  competition.  In 
making  this  contention,  the  Congressional  Record  that 
he  himself  gave  me  quotes  him  as  saying: 

"I  find  in  the  report  of  the  secretary  of  internal  affairs  of  the 
State  of  Pennsylvania  a  very  interesting  and  accurate  tabulation  of 
statistics  of  manufactures.  It  is  Official  Document  No.  9,  page  69. 
This  document  shows  that  the  combined  production  of  the  steel 
works  and  rolling  mills  for  the  year  1907  for  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania amounted  to  12,953,000  gross  tons,  at  a  total  valuation  of 
$504,167,000. 

"The  average  yearly  earnings  of  persons  employed  in  the  steel 
works  and  rolling  mills  are  shown  to  be  $663.80  per  year  in  the 
mills  of  Pennsylvania.  .  .  .  The  Pennsylvania  report  which  I  have 
just  referred  to  shows  that  the  average  value  of  the  production  of 
each  employee  in  the  mills  of  Pennsylvania  amounts  to  $3,661.  In 
other  words,  the  average  wage  in  the  iron  and  ste'el  mills  in  Penn- 
sylvania is  $663  as  compared  with  an  earning  capacity  of  each 
employee  of  $3,661,  making  the  labor  cost  only  18  per  cent,  of  the 
value  of  the  product  of  the  employee. 

"The  same  report,  referred  to  above,  shows  that  the  average 
yearly  earnings  of  men  employed  in  the  tin-plate  industry  in  Penn- 
sylvania amounted  to  $722,  and  the  average  value  of  the  production 
for  each  employee  amounted  to  $2,127,  making  the  labor  cost  23 
per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  product.  .  .  . 

"  The  same  report  shows  that  the  average  value  produced  by  each 
employee  in  the  manufacture  of  cotton  and  woolen  yarns  in  Penn- 
sylvania is  $2,825,  and  the  average  yearly  earnings  of  each  employee 
are  $363.  This  report  shows  that  the  textile  industries  of  Phila- 
delphia pay  their  employees  on  an  average  $429  a  year,  and  that 
these  employees  produce  an  average  value  of  product  amounting  to 
$2,094. 

"The  same  report  shows  that  the  average  value  produced  by 
each  employee  in  cotton,  woolen,  waste,  and  shoddy  manufactures 
amounts  to  $5,846,  and  the  average  yearly  wage  in  these  industries 
was  about  $449;  that  the  woolen  and  worsted  goods  produced  by 
each  employee  amounts  to  $2,445,  and  the  average  yearly  earnings 
amount  to  $454. 

"  When  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  the  average  ad  valorem  rate  of 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF          109 

duty  on  the  importations  of  worsted  goods  runs  all  the  way  from 
50  per  cent,  to  140  per  cent.,  and  the  percentage  of  labor  cost  is 
only  18  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  product  produced  by  each  man, 
and  the  English  workman  receives  at  least  one-half  the  American 
wage  scale,  making  a  difference  in  the  labor  cost  in  any  case  not 
to  exceed  9  or  10  per  cent,  of  the  value  of  the  American  product,  it 
shows  what  an  enormous  protection  is  given  to  the  industry  above 
the  difference  in  the  labor  cost  at  home  and  abroad." 

Now,  nothing  about  the  foregoing  statements  except 
the  italics  are  mine.  They  are  Mr.  Underwood's.  He 
vouched  for  their  truth.  I  do  not.  I  do  not  believe 
they  are  true.  They  are  substantially  true,  but  they  are 
not  exactly  true.  In  computing  the  value  of  the 
worker's  product,  in  each  case,  he  did  not  take  into  ac- 
count the  cost  of  raw  material.  The  cost  of  raw  ma- 
terial represents  wages,  waste  and  profit.  Whether  Mr. 
Underwood  did  not  know  these  facts  or  whether  it  did 
not  suit  his  purpose  to  state  them,  I  have  no  means  of 
knowing.  If  he  did  not  know  them,  he  is  too  ignorant 
to  take  part  in  a  discussion  of  the  tariff.  If  he  did  know 
them  and  yet  did  not  state  them,  he  is  intellectually  too 
dishonest  to  take  part  in  the  discussion  of  the  tariff  or 
anything  else.  The  plight  of  the  American  working- 
man  is  not  quite  so  bad  as  he  stated  it  to  be,  but  it  is  bad 
enough.  It  is  so  bad  that  the  American  workingman 
never  gets  ahead  while  the  class  that  employs  him  never 
goes  back. 

We  are  now  beginning  to  get  a  near  view  of  Mr.  Un- 
derwood. We  are  beginning  to  see  this  man  as  he  is. 
He  is  a  hero  made  of  printer's  ink.  He  poses  as  a  cham- 
pion of  the  people,  yet  if  he  is  a  champion  of  the  peo- 
ple, Thomas  F.  Ryan  is  a  champion  of  the  people  and 
August  Belmont  is  a  champion  of  the  people.  Ryan  and 
Belmont  are  "  Democrats."  Underwood  is  a  "  Demo- 
crat.'" 


no      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

But  when  their  party  comes  into  power,  gentlemen 
like  Mr.  Underwood  who  have  promised  so  much  to 
get  office  slow  up  a  bit.  With  the  tariff  reduced  and 
its  full  results  about  to  be  known  of  all  men,  it  became 
futile  to  make  loud  claims.  So  they  moderated  their 
tones.  The  people  were  gently  cautioned  not  to  ex- 
pect too  much  from  the  low  tariff  nor  to  expect  that  lit- 
tle too  soon.  But  Democrats  do  not  dare  to  talk  that 
way  when  they  are  campaigning.  The  promise  of  a  few 
cheap  cabbages  from  Canada  would  not  have  won  the 
election  for  Mr.  Wilson  in  1912.  In  1912,  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  tariff  was  to  fill  the  "  empty  market  basket." 
In  1913,  with  the  facts  about  the  tariff  about  to  become 
known,  the  tariff  reduction  was  nothing  that  Mr.  Un- 
derwood cared  to  talk  about  in  precise  terms. 

Having  revealed  Mr.  Underwood  as  exactly  the  sort 
of  a  man  whom  it  is  more  pleasant  to  meet  before  elec- 
tion than  afterward,  I  shall  now  reveal  him  as  a  man 
who  knows  so  little  about  his  great  subject,  the  tariff, 
that  he  denies  in  one  speech  what  he  asserts  in  another. 
I  am  indebted  for  this  privilege  to  the  copies  of  the  two 
speeches  that  Mr.  Underwood  himself  so  kindly  gave 
me.  In  Mr.  Underwood's  tariff  speech  of  March  25, 
1909,  he  said: 

"There  is  no  doubt  that  a  tariff  bill  can  be  written,  based  fairly 
on  the  difference  in  the  cost  of  production  at  home  and  abroad." 

On  April  23,  1913,  in  speaking  upon  his  own  tariff  bill, 
he  said : 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  contend  that  the  theory  is  not  defensible; 
that  it  is  impossible  for  anyone  to  reach  a  conclusion  based  upon 
the  difference  in  the  cost-of-production  theory." 

Now,  if  a  Socialist  were  to  have  such  head-on  col- 
lisions with  himself,  everybody  would  understand.  By 


THE  PRESS  AND  THE  TARIFF    in 

the  common  consent  of  the  uninformed,  a  Socialist  is 
necessarily  a  jackass.  He  never  knows  what  he  is  talk- 
ing about.  He  changes  his  opinions  from  day  to  day. 
But  please  bear  in  mind  that  Mr.  Underwood  made  the 
foregoing  statements.  They  are  not  important,  it  is 
true.  They  express  only  the  opinions  of  Mr.  Under- 
wood. But  since  the  ink-spreaders  are  so  insistent  in 
presenting-  Mr.  Underwood  as  a  great  statesman,  and 
since  he  himself  is  trying  as  hard  as  he  can  to  head  for 
the  White  House,  it  is  interesting  if  not  important  to 
show  exactly  how  profound  he  is. 

One  more  quotation  from  Mr.  Underwood's  speech 
of  April  23,  1913,  and  I  believe  I  shall  have  proved  by 
his  own  words  the  bitterness  of  the  fraud,  from  the 
working  class  point  of  view,  that  is  constituted  by  his 
tariff  law.  In  speaking  of  the  high  cost  of  living,  as 
affecting  manufacturers,  he  said: 

"  It  is  this  high  cost  of  living  to  employees  that  of  necessity  in- 
creases the  cost  of  production.  It  is  the  high  cost  of  supplies  that 
industry  must  bear  that  increases  its  cost  of  production.  It  is  this 
increased  cost  of  production  that  has  chained  American  indus- 
tries to  our  shores  and  prevented  them  from  going  out  among  the 
nations  of  the  earth  to  spread  the  goods  and  wares  of  American 
enterprise  in  foreign  markets  and  to  secure  the  fruits  of  American 
labor  and  American  enterprise  to  the  people  of  our  great  country." 
[Applause  on  the  Democratic  side.] 

Do  you  get  the  significance  of  that?  Do  you  catch 
the  appeal  that  is  made  to  the  cupidity  of  manufacturers 
who  cannot  be  helped  by  a  protective  tariff  ?  Mr.  Under- 
wood's law,  according  to  his  own  statement,  was  framed 
to  reduce  the  cost  of  production  by  reducing  wages,  and 
thus  enable  "  American  enterprise "  to  "  spread  its 
goods  "  in  foreign  markets.  Please  also  observe  Mr. 
Underwood's  admission  that  wages  are  based  upon  the 
cost  of  living,  following  it  both  up  and  down. 


ii2      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

"  It  is  the  high  cost  of  living,"  he  says,  "  that  of  neces- 
sity increases  the  cost  of  production,"  by  compelling 
employers  to  pay  wages  enough  to  enable  their  employees 
to  live. 

Are  American  workingmen  fools? 

No;  not  quite.  They  are  the  victims  of  printer's  ink. 
The  present  industrial  situation  is  so  absurd  that  it  could 
not  exist  for  another  five  years  if  the  truth  about  it  were 
told  and  re-told  to  all  the  people.  It  is  only  because 
all  the  batteries  of  the  press  are  devoted  to  the  tremen- 
dous task  of  making  black  seem  white  that  black  seems 
white  to  so  many  people.  If  most  of  the  newspapers 
and  magazines  were  to  be  devoted  for  the  next  five  years 
to  explaining  and  advocating  Socialism,  a  public  opinion 
would  be  formed  that  would  compel  the  government  to 
take  over  the  ownership  of  all  the  great  industries  of  the 
country  and  operate  them  for  the  sole  benefit  of  the 
people. 

But  that  would  put  the  grafters  out  of  business,  and 
that  is  precisely  what  the  grafters  do  not  want.  That 
is  why  they  control  the  visible  supply  of  printer's  ink 
and  make  into  heroes  gentlemen  like  The  Overestimated 
Mr.  Underwood. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS 

HERE  shall  be  set  down  in  simple  phrase  the  story 
of  the  Rothschilds.  The  Rothschilds  do  not 
amount  to  much.  They  never  amounted  to  much.  The 
first  one  was  a  rag  picker.  So  is  the  last  one.  All  the 
Rothschilds  in  between  have  been  rag  pickers.  The 
Rothschild  picking  now  is  merely  done  in  a  different  way. 
The  old  way  was  the  slow  way.  The  picking  was  done 
for  the  rags  themselves,  and  sometimes  the  task  was  plied 
at  a  pile  of  refuse  in  the  street. 

The  new  way  is  somewhat  of  an  improvement  upon 
this.  The  new  way  is  to  pick  rags  for  what  is  in  their 
pockets.  The  work  is  not  done  in  the  street.  The 
hands  are  never  soiled.  The  returns  are  always  abun- 
dant. And,  by  the  providence  of  the  gods  that  watch 
over  multimillionaires,  there  is  never  any  shortage  of 
rags.  The  sun  shines,  the  rain  falls,  and,  behold!  A 
constant  crop  of  human  beings  springs  from  the  earth 
to  wear  rags  to  be  picked. 

The  new  way  to  pick  rags  is  with  debts.  The  Roths- 
childs taught  the  world  how  to  run  drunkenly  into  debt. 
We  common  people  shall  never  know,  perhaps,  all  of 
the  hidden  meanings  that  are  wrapped  up  in  that  won- 
derful word  — "  debt."  It  has  so  many  meanings,  so 
many  morals  and  so  many  vices.  The  poor  are  always 
urged  by  their  betters  never  to  go  into  debt.  The  rich 

113 


H4      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

and  the  moderately  rich,  of  course,  go  into  debt  as  much 
as  they  please,  or  as  much  as  they  can. 

But  we  are  told  that  there  is  a  difference,  in  this  re- 
spect, between  the  poor  and  the  rich.  The  poor  cannot 
pay.  The  rich  can.  This  is  not  always  true.  Nor  yet 
does  it  explain  the  mixed  morality  of  debt.  The  rich 
do  not  always  require  that  those  who  become  indebted 
to  them  shall  pay  their  debts.  This  requirement  has 
not  been  made,  in  certain  instances,  since  the  time  of 
the  early  Rothschilds. 

The  Rothschilds  taught  the  world  how  to  run  so 
deeply  into  debt  that  it  can  never  pay  what  it  owes.  The 
Rothschilds  taught  the  rich  men  of  the  earth  to  smile 
and  be  glad  to  permit  such  debts  to  be  incurred.  But 
such  debts  must  not  be  personal  debts.  They  must  be 
debts  owed  by  governments  so  that  entire  peoples  may 
thus  be  mortgaged.  And,  when  entire  peoples  are 
mortgaged,  what  more  might  a  gentle  multimillionaire 
ask?  Why  should  he  require  that  the  debt  be  paid? 
Better  for  him  and  his  class  that  the  debt  be  not  paid. 
So  long  as  the  debt  stands  the  people  are  mortgaged  to 
him.  They  plant.  He  reaps.  He  holds  the  bond.  He 
can  draw  interest  upon  it  until  the  bond  is  due  and  then 
exchange  it  for  another  bond  and  draw  interest  some 
more;  or  he  can  sell  his  bond  to  some  other  millionaire 
and  thus  get  his  money  back. 

It  is  really  so  great  a  device  that  these  gentlemen 
themselves  assure  us  that  the  existence  of  a  national  debt 
is  "  the  first  stage  of  a  nation  toward  civilization."  Of 
course,  such  assurances  are  often  given,  not  by  the  rich 
personally,  but  by  the  eminent  political  economists  who 
are  employed  by  them  to  provide  wholesome  reading 
matter  for  the  common  people.  The  line  that  I  have 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         115 

just  quoted  is  taken,  I  may  say,  from  the  article  on 
"  National  Debt "  in  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica." 

While  the  dead  Rothschilds  are  sleeping  the  sleep  of 
the  just  and  the  live  Rothschilds  are  picking  the  rags 
of  the  just,  let  us  proceed  to  a  brief  examination  of  the 
extent  to  which  the  world  has  become  "  civilized." 
Great  Britain  owes  a  debt  of  three  billion  eight  hundred 
millions,  all  incurred  in  war,  "  a  sum,"  says  David  Starr 
Jordan,  President  of  Leland  Stanford,  Jr.,  University, 
"  which  has  never  been  repaid,  will  never  be  repaid  and 
can  never  be  repaid  so  long  as  the  natural  growth  in 
national  wealth,  due  to  peace,  invention  and  commerce, 
is  all  swallowed  up  by  the  incredible  burden  of  arma- 
ment." 1 

Norman  Angell  draws  out  the  telescope  a  little  far- 
ther and  presents  a  sharper  image  of  England's  debt- 
ridden  civilization.  He  pictures  an  Englishman  proudly 
watching  the  procession  of  subject  peoples  passing  in 
review  at  the  time  of  the  last  coronation.  The  Eng- 
lishman speaks: 

"  I  own  India,  Africa  and  the  Antipodes,  the  islands 
of  the  tropic  seas,  the  snows  of  the  north,  the  jungles 
of  the  far  continents,  and  I  am  starving  for  a  crust 
of  bread.  I  rule  all  the  black  millions  from  which  these 
legions  have  been  drawn.  My  word  is  law  in  half  a 
world,  and  a  negro  savage  turned  from  me  in  disgust 
when  I  cringed  before  him  for  alms." 

Mr.  E.  Alexander  Powell,  an  economist  who  is  also 
an  observer,  once  said  this  to  the  readers  of  the  Sat- 
urday  Evening  Post  about  Great  Britain's  debt: 

"  Would  the  people  of  Great  Britain  have  you  believe 
that  they  are  free?  Great  Britain  owes  a  war  debt  of 

*"  Unseen  Empire,"  p.  6. 


ii6      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

more  than  three  billion  eight  hundred  millions  of  dol- 
lars. By  it  she  is  bound  for  all  time  and  eternity.  She 
can  never  pay  the  debt  and  she  knows  it.  She  never 
expects  to  pay  it.  Of  this  incalculable  sum  every  in- 
habitant of  the  United  Kingdom  owes  something  over 
eighty  dollars.  Every  child  born  under  the  Union  Jack 
between  Land's  End  and  John  O'Groat's  is  confronted 
)with  a  bill  for  a  like  sum." 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland  also  have  municipal  debts 
amounting  to  two  billion  eight  .hundred  millions  of  dol- 
lars, a  sum  which  is  constantly  increasing.  The  rate  of 
increase  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  in  1901  these 
debts  amounted  to  one  billion  eight  hundred  and  eighty 
millions.  The  leisurely,  cultivated  gentlemen  of  Eng- 
land are  therefore  drawing  interest  on  only  six  billion 
six  hundred  millions  of  public  debt,  and  intend  to  draw 
it  "  for  all  time  and  eternity."  The  delightful  nature 
of  this  undertaking  may  be  slightly  sensed  when  it  is 
explained  that  the  impoverished  people  of  Great  Britain, 
in  1911,  paid  an  interest  charge  of  $101,060,000  on  the 
national  debt  and  almost  as  much  more  on  the  municipal 
debts.  Multiply  this  by  eternity  and  you  may  perceive 
exactly  what  confronts  the  people  of  Britain,  provided 
the  sum  be  not  swelled  by  more  debts  —  which  it  will  be. 

In  France  the  civilizing  influence  of  public  debt  has 
proceeded  even  further.  The  national  debt  of  France 
as  almost  six  and  a  half  billions  of  dollars  and  the  mu- 
inicipal  debts  are  nearly  a  billion  more.  The  French 
are  therefore  "civilized"  to  the  extent  of  about  seven 
billions  of  dollars.  The  annual  interest  charge  on  the 
national  debt  is  almost  $200,000,000.  The  interest  on 
the  municipal  debts  amounts  approximately  to  $40,000,- 
ooo.  Nor  is  the  end  in  sight.  In  1906  the  cities  of 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS          117 

France  owed  $900,000,000.     To  this  colossal  sum  a 
hundred  millions  have  been  added  in  seven  years. 

Germany  is  in  debt  to  its  ears.  The  national  and 
state  debts  combined  amount  almost  to  four  and  a  half 
billions.  The  municipal  debts  amount  to  two  and  a  half 
billions.  "  The  municipal  debt  of  most  German  cities," , 
says  President  Jordan,  "  has  doubled  every  ten  years  for » 
a  long  time."  The  annual  interest  on  the  national  and 
state  debts  amounts  to  $175,000,000.  The  interest  on 
the  municipal  debts  is  $100,000,000.  Such  is  the  story 
of  Germany's  greatness.  Seven  billions  of  debts  —  and 
growing;  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  millions  of  an- 
nual interest  —  and  growing.  Also  a  Socialist  party 
that  is  greater  than  any  other  political  party  in  Germany 
—  and  growing. 

Beside  such  colossal  spenders  the  American  people 
seem  quite  small  and  obscure.  Our  national  debt  is  a 
little  less  than  a  billion.  Our  state  and  municipal  debts 
are  about  two  billions.  Our  total  annual  interest 
charges  are  about  fifty  millions'.  But,  like  all  other  sim- 
ilar interest  charges,  they  are  to  run  "  for  eternity." 
That  is  not  the  way  the  bonds  read,  but  that  is  the  way 
the  facts  run.  Like  all  other  self-respecting  peoples,  we 
have  no  intention  of  paying  our  debts.  Or,  to  be  more 
nearly  accurate,  the  capitalists  who  expect  to  exploit  us 
"  for  all  time  and  eternity  "  have  no  intention  of  per- 
mitting us  to  pay  our  debts.  They  trump  up  new 
schemes  to  cause  us  to  go  more  deeply  into  their  debt. 
They  intoxicate  us  with  the  strong  fumes  of  "world 
power."  They  tell  us  how  fine  a  thing  it  is  to  be  reck- 
oned among  the  great  nations  of  the  world.  They 
cause  us  to  maintain  great  military  establishments  and 
to  build  more  and  greater  dreadnoughts.  Thirty  years 


ii8      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

ago  we  spent  almost  nothing  on  the  navy  and  little  more 
on  the  army.  Now  we  are  spending  $300,000,000  a 
year  on  the  army  and  navy.  Almost  a  million  dollars 
every  week-day.  Sixty-five  cents  of  every  dollar  that  is 
raised  by  the  American  government  by  taxation  is  spent 
for  wars  past  or  to  come  —  for  pensions,  battleships  or 
soldiers.  The  national  tax  amounts  to  $6  a  head.  Na- 
tional, state  and  city  taxes,  according  to  President  Jor- 
dan? amount  to  $38.50  per  capita.  Multiply  this  sum 
by  the  number  in  your  family  and  you  may  know  how 
much  is  being  collected  from  you,  in  one  way  and  an- 
other, to  support  the  various  governments  under  which 
you  live. 

The  bonded  debts  of  the  world  amount  to  sixty  billion 
dollars.  The  annual  interest  charge  upon  this  is  ap- 
proximately two  and  a  half  billions.  Of  the  total  bonded 
debt  thirty-eight  billions  are  owed  by  nations  and  the 
remainder  by  cities  and  states.  President  Jordan  de- 
clares that  all  national  debts  represent  expenditures  for 
war  —  the  exceptions  are  insignificant. 

Let  us  now  drop  these  harrowing  figures  and  go  back 
to  soothing  scenes.  Maier  Amschel,  founder  of  the 
Rothschild  family,  was  born  in  the  Jewish  quarter  of 
Frankfort,  Germany,  in  1743.  Apparently,  he  was  born 
to  hard  luck  and  plenty  of  it.  As  a  Jew  he  was  com- 
pelled to  lived  in  the  Ghetto.  The  Ghetto  consisted  of 
a  single  thoroughfare  —  Jew  street  —  in  which  for  cen- 
turies representatives  of  this  race  had  been  herded  by 
the  Germans.  Every  night,  at  a  certain  time,  a  Ger- 
man stretched  a  chain  across  each  end  of  the  street, 
after  which  no  one  might  enter  or  leave.  Each  morn- 
ing the  chain  was  removed.  Napoleon  once  tore  the 
chains  down  and  told  the  Jews  they  might  live  where 

i "  War  and  Waste,"  p.  91. 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         119 

they  pleased,  but  a  little  later  Napoleon  himself  was 
compelled  to  move  on,  and  then  the  Jews  were  forced 
to  return  to  their  old  quarters.  Benjamin  Franklin 
used  to  say  that  "  three  moves  are  as  bad  as  a  fire,"  but 
it  seems  this  is  not  always  so.  Much  depends  upon 
who  does  the  moving.  The  Germans  made  the  Jews 
buy  back  their  own  houses  and  pay  $200,000  for  them. 

The  lad  who  was  to  found  the  house  of  Rothschild 
had  not,  in  his  youth,  even  the  name  of  Rothschild.  At 
the  time  he  was  born  the  fashion  of  having  surnames 
had  not  become  general  in  Europe.  Not  because  of  pov- 
erty, but  through  custom,  names  were  transposed  or 
otherwise  juggled,  and  thus  made  to  serve  for  different 
persons.  Thus,  while  this  lad's  name  was  Maier  Am- 
schel,  his  father's  name  was  Amschel  Moses.  The 
name  "  Rothschild "  came  from  the  red  shield,  or,  as 
it  is  said  in  German,  the  "  rothes  schild,"  which  desig- 
nated the  house  in  which  the  family  lived.  In  those 
days  there  were  no  street  numbers.  Each  family  hung 
out  some  picture  or  emblem  to  mark  their  abode.  When 
families  were  compelled  to  choose  surnames  this  Jewish 
family,  remembering  the  red  shield,  decided  to  call 
themselves  Rothschild. 

Life  in  the  Ghetto  of  Frankfort  at  that  time  sug- 
gests many  interesting  reflections.  When  we  read  of 
the  chained  street  we  think  of  the  place  as  a  prison. 
When  we  read  that  after  Maier  Rothschild  became  a 
millionaire  his  aged  mother  insisted  upon  ending  her 
days  in  the  old  house  on  Jew  street  with  the  red  shield 
—  then  we  know  the  Ghetto,  to  this  woman  at  least, 
was  not  a  prison.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  Frankfort's 
Jewish  quarter  of  that  day  was  so  poverty-stricken  as 
the  East  Side  of  New  York  is  now.  The  Frankfort 
Jews  had  the  $200,000  with  which  to  buy  back  their 


120      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

own  houses  from  the  Germans.  The  Jews  in  the  East 
Side  of  New  York  do  not  own  the  quarters  in  which 
they  live.  The  most  onerous  feature  of  Jewish  life  in 
the  Frankfort  of  that  day*  was,  perhaps,  the  German 
provision  that  not  more  than  two  Jewish  couples  could 
be  married  each  year.  Marriages  were  not  made  in 
heaven  in  those  days  —  they  were  "  made  in  Germany  " ; 
one  every  six  months. 

As  a  boy  Maier  Rothschild  picked  rags,  bought  junk, 
and  peddled  such  merchandise  as  he  could  carry  in  a 
pack  or  push  in  a  cart.  His  father,  wanting  him  to 
become  a  rabbi,  sent  him  to  a  theological  school,  but  the 
old  gentleman  died  soon  afterward  and  left  so  little 
money  that  the  youngster  was  taken  out  and  set  to  work. 
His  first  job  was  as  a  dealer  in  old  coins.  No  coin  had 
been  minted  since  the  days  of  Julius  Caesar  of  which  he 
did  not  know  the  exact  value.  Also,  he  had  a  perfect 
knowledge  of  the  exchange  values  of  the  current  coins 
of  all  the  European  nations.  For  a  little  while  he  was 
lured  away  by  a  job  in  a  bank  at  Hanover,  but  he  soon 
returned  to  Frankfort  and  resumed  his  old  business. 
He  accumulated  money  and,  in  a  few  years,  bought  the 
house  in  Jew  street  in  which  he  was  born. 

Rothschild's  operations,  together  with  his  quickness 
and  sharpness,  at  length  attracted  the  attention  of  Land- 
grave William  IX,  whom  Americans  will  more  quickly 
recognize  under  his  later  title  of  Prince  William  I  of 
Hesse.  It  was  this  gentleman  who  farmed  out  Hessian 
soldiers  to  England  to  fight  America  in  the  Revolution- 
ary War.  Benjamin  Franklin  tells,  in  one  of  the  let- 
ters that  he  wrote  from  Paris  at  the  time,  of  the  profit- 
able manner  in  which  the  king  of  Holland  contrived 
to  show  his  contempt  for  such  action.  The  laws  of 
Holland  imposed  a  tax  of  something  like  a  dollar  a  head 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         121 

upon  cattle  marched  across  Holland  to  a  seaport.  The 
Dutch  king,  believing  that  soldiers  farmed  out  to  fight 
were  no  more  than  "  cattle,"  imposed  the  tax,  which 
the  Hessian  prince  was  required  to  pay  from  the  sum 
that  England  gave  him. 

William  IX  and  his  father  who  preceded  him  together 
received  from  England  $1,290,000,000  for  selling  Hes- 
sian soldiers  to  fight  against  America.  It  was  the  neces- 
sity for  handling  this  large  sum  of  money  that  brought 
the  landgrave  and  Rothschild  into  close  relationship.  We 
thus  see  how  the  fortunes  of  the  Rothschilds  and  Amer- 
ica are  and,  from  the  beginning,  have  been  peculiarly 
intertwined.  The  house  was  not  founded  upon  Amer- 
ican money,  but  it  was  founded  upon  money  that  Roths- 
child could  not  have  reached  if  America  had  not  gone 
to  war  with  England.  Years  later  it  became  the  policy 
of  Nathan,  the  next  head  of  the  Rothschild  house,  never 
to  lend  money  to  an  American  State.  The  present  in- 
vestments of  the  Rothschilds  in  American  industries  is 
estimated  at  $100,000,000.  In  other  words,  the  Roths- 
childs having  forgiven  us  for  being  poor,  are  now  will- 
ing to  attach  their  pipe  lines  to  our  pockets  and  draw  off 
their  interest.  And  we,  of  course,  have  no  grudge 
against  them  because  their  fortune  is  founded  upon 
money  stained  with  American  blood.  Indeed,  it  is 
pleasant  to  see  brethren  dwelling  together  in  harmony. 

I  may  say,  parenthetically,  that  Maier  Rothschild  is 
drawn  into  this  picture  of  national  debts  because,  with 
William  Pitt,  he  is  primarily  responsible  for  the  load 
of  debt  under  which  the  world  is  staggering.  Before 
Pitt's  time  the  national  debt,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  did 
not  exist.  Most  of  the  borrowing  was  done  by  the  kings 
themselves  upon  their  own  security.  Parliaments  raised 
what  they  could  by  taxation  and  by  short  loans,  but  no- 


122      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

body  mortgaged  much  of  the  future.     England's  wars 

—  particularly  her  war  with  us  in  1775-83  —  plunged  her 
into  debt.     Pitt,  as  her  prime  minister,  was  put  to  his 
wits.     The  nation's  borrowing  capacity  along  eld  lines 
was  exhausted.     Pitt  then  conceived  the  idea  of  using 
his  country's  revenues,  not  to  meet  current  expenses,  but 
to  pay  the  interest  upon  loans.     He  laid  down  the  doc- 
trine that  England  belonged  to  the  Englishmen  then  liv- 
ing—  not  to  those  who  had  not  yet  been  born.     He 
therefore  declared  the  right  of  England  to  mortgage  un- 
born generations  by  borrowing  as  much  as  current  income 
would  pay  the  interest  upon.     And  Maier  Rothschild  and 
his  later  tribe  were  the  ones  who  helped  Pitt  and  his 
successors  to  do  it.     Thereafter  a  million  of  annual  in- 
come no  longer  meant  a  million  of  annual  income.     It 
meant  as  much  as  a  million  of  annual  income  would  pay 
interest  upon.     At  4  per  cent,  it  meant  twenty-five  mil- 
lions to  be  kept  forever  and  ever.     If  income  could  be 
increased  a  hundred  millions,  it  meant  that  twenty-five 
hundred  millions  more  could  be  borrowed  —  merely  by 
paying  interest  upon  it  forever.     It  was  bad  financiering 

—  but  it  produced  the  wanted  money. 

Since  that  day  no  child  has  been  born  under  the  Brit- 
ish flag  except  to  a  heritage  of  debt  incurred  for  wars 
waged  before  it  was  born.  Inasmuch  as  the  system  of  de- 
ferred payments  spread  to  all  other  "  civilized  "  nations, 
no  child  has  since  been  born  in  any  one  of  them  except 
to  a  heritage  of  debt.  Unless  these  debts  are  paid  or 
repudiated,  no  child  can  ever  be  born  —  not  even  until 
the  crack  of  doom  —  in  any  civilized  nation  except  to  a 
heritage  of  debt.  Economists  now  tell  us  that  Great 
Britain  cannot  pay  her  debt  and  knows  it.  France  is 
even  more  deeply  in  debt  than  Great  Britain.  Germany 
is  plunging  into  the  mire  as  rapidly  as  her  kaiser  can 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         123 

build  dreadnoughts  to  send  her  there.  We  are  some- 
what behind  in  the  race  to  ruin,  because  we  started  late, 
but,  having  started,  we  are  going  strong. 

We  may  now  with  more  understanding  resume  con- 
sideration of  Maier  Rothschild.  He  loaded  Great  Brit- 
ain up  with  debt,  piled  as  much  debt  as  he  could  upon 
the  back  of  Denmark,  yet  found  time  to  manage  the  enor- 
mous fortune  of  William,  the  Hessian  prince.  William 
hated  Napoleon  with  a  hatred  that  knew  no  bounds.  He 
farmed  out  Hessian  soldiers  to  England  to  fight  against 
France.  He  said  publicly  that  he  would  rather  be  a 
Prussian  general  than  a  king  by  Napoleon's  favor.  So 
when  Napoleon  headed  William's  way  William  knew  pre- 
cisely what  to  expect  —  and  to  do.  He  knew  that  Na- 
poleon would  make  him  a  prisoner  and  confiscate  his 
wealth  if  he  could  get  his  hands  upon  him  and  his  money. 
Napoleon  confirmed  the  first  part  of  the  prince's  expecta- 
tions by  issuing  the  following  bulletin : 

"  The  house  of  Hesse-Cassel  has  sold  its  subjects  to  England  for 
many  years,  and  the  prince  has  made  large  sums  of  money  by  this 
means.  This  shameful  avarice  puts  an  end  to  the  house.  It  has 
ceased  to  reign." 

Having  ceased  to  reign,  there  was  nothing  to  do  but 
run,  and  William  ran.  Before  he  fled  he  entrusted  more 
than  $3,000,000  to  Rothschild.  A  legend  declares  that 
Rothschild  secreted  this  sum  in  wine  casks  in  his  cellar, 
but  this  is  not  true.  Money  in  a  wine  cask  draws  no 
interest.  Rothschild  sent  $3,000,000  to  his  son  Nathan 
to  be  lent  in  London.  How  much  more  the  prince  left 
in  his  keeping  no  one  knows. 

We  shall  now  see  how  the  gods  play  into  the  hands 
of  the  pure  and  good.  Before  the  Hessian  prince 
deemed  it  safe  to  return  Maier  Rothschild  died.  The 


124      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

prince  believed  he  should  never  see  his  money  again.  To 
his  great  surprise  and  delight,  Rothschild's  sons  —  of 
whom  he  left  five,  by  the  way,  together  with  five  daugh- 
ters —  returned  all  of  the  money  entrusted  to  their 
father,  together  with  the  interest  thereon.  Every  king 
in  Europe  heard  the  good  news  and  became  more  than 
ever  convinced  that  the  Rothschilds  were  good  men  to 
tie  to. 

Maier  Rothschild,  when  he  died  in  1812,  was  worth 
many  millions  of  dollars  —  at  any  rate,  he  had  many 
millions.  He  enjoined  his  sons  to  stick  together,  to  con- 
sult their  mother  on  business  affairs,  and  to  marry  only 
their  own  relatives.  Each  son  was  to  manage  a  bank 
in  each  of  the  five  great  capitals  of  Europe.  Nathan 
was  assigned  to  the  management  of  the  London  bank, 
and  by  virtue  of  his  ability  became  the  head  of  the  fam- 
ily. 

History  records  that  there  was  only  one  Napoleon  at 
the  battle  of  Waterloo  —  and  that  he  was  too  small  for 
his  job.  The  fact  is  there  were  two  Napoleons  at  Water- 
loo, and  the  second  one  was  big  enough  for  his  job,  with 
some  to  spare.  The  second  Napoleon  was  Nathan 
Rothschild  —  the  emperor  of  finance.  During  the  try- 
ing months  that  came  before  the  crash  Nathan  Roths- 
child had  plunged  on  England  until  his  own  fortunes, 
no  less  than  those  of  the  warring  nations,  were  staked 
on  the  issue.  He  had  lent  money  direct.  He  had  dis- 
counted Wellington's  paper.  He  had  risked  millions  by 
sending  chests  of  gold  through  war-swept  territory 
where  the  slightest  failure  of  plans  might  have  caused 
its  capture.  He  was  extended  to  the  limit  when  the  fate- 
ful hour  struck,  and  the  future  seemed  none  too  certain. 
The  English,  in  characteristic  fashion,  believed  that  all 


LWAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         125 

had  been  lost  before  anything  was  lost  - —  before  the  first 
gun  bellowed  out  its  challenge  over  the  Belgian  plains. 
The  London  stock  market  was  in  a  panic.  Consols  were 
falling,  slipping,  sliding,  tumbling.  If  the  telegraph  had 
been  invented,  the  suspense  would  have  been  less,  even 
if  the  wires  had  told  that  all  was  lost.  But  there  was 
no  telegraph.  There  were  only  rumors  and  fears. 

As  the  armies  drew  toward  Waterloo  Nathan  Roths- 
child was  like  a  man  aflame.  All  of  his  instincts  were 
crying  out  for  news  —  good  news,  bad  news,  any  kind 
of  news,  but  news  —  something  to  end  his  suspense. 
News  could  be  had  immediately  only  by  going  to  the 
front.  He  did  not  want  to  go  to  the  front.  A  biog- 
rapher of  the  family,  Mr.  Ignatius  Balla,1  declares  that 
Nathan  had  "  always  shrunk  from  the  sight  of  blood." 
From  this  it  may  be  presumed  that,  to  put  it  delicately, 
he  was  not  a  martial  figure.  But,  as  events  came  to  a 
focus,  his  mingled  hopes  and  fears  overcame  his  inborn 
instincts.  He  must  know  the  best  or  the  worst  and  that 
at  once.  So  he  posted  off  for  Belgium. 

He  drew  near  to  the  gathering  armies.  From  a  safe 
post  on  a  hill  he  saw  the  puffs  of  smoke  from  the  open- 
ing guns.  He  saw  Napoleon  hurl  his  human  missiles  at 
Wellington's  advancing  walls  of  red.  He  did  not  see  the 
final  crash  of  the  French,  because  he  saw  enough  to  con- 
vince him  that  it  was  coming,  and  therefore  did  not  wait 
to  witness  the  actual  event.  He  had  no  time  to  wait. 
He  hungered  and  thirsted  for  London  as  a  few  days  be- 
fore he  had  hungered  and  thirsted  for  the  sight  of  Water- 
loo. Wellington  having  saved  the  day  for  him  as  well 
as  for  England,  Nathan  Rothschild  saw  an  opportunity 
to  reap  colossal  gains  by  beating  the  news  of  Napoleon's 

1  The  Romance  of  the  Rothschilds,  p.  88. 


126      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

defeat  to  London  and  buying  the  depressed  securities  of 
his  adopted  country  before  the  news  of  victory  should 
send  them  skyward  with  the  hats  of  those  whose  brains 
were  still  whirling  with  fear. 

So  he  left  the  field  of  Waterloo  while  the  guns  were 
still  booming  out  the  requiem  of  all  of  Napoleon's  great 
hopes  of  empire.  He  raced  to  Brussels  upon  the  back 
of  a  horse  whose  sides  were  dripping  with  spur-drawn 
blood.  At  Brussels  he  paid  an  exorbitant  price  to  be 
whirled  in  a  carriage  to  Ostend.  At  Ostend  he  found 
the  sea  in  the  grip  of  a  storm  that  shook  the  shores  even 
as  Wellington  was  still  shaking  the  luck-worn  hope  of 
France.  "  He  was  certainly  no  hero,"  says  Balla,  "  but 
at  the  present  moment  he  feared  nothing."  Who  would 
take  him  in  a  boat  and  row  him  to  England?  Not  a 
boatman  spoke.  No  one  likes  to  speak  when  Death  calls 
his  name,  and  Rothschild's  words  were  like  words  from 
Death.  But  Rothschild  continued  to  speak.  He  must 
have  a  boatman  and  a  boat.  He  must  beat  the  news  of 
Waterloo  to  England.  Who  would  make  the  trip  for 
500  francs?  Who  would  go  for  800,  1,000?  Who 
would  go  for  2,000?  A  courageous  sailor  would  go. 
His  name  should  be  here  if  it  had  not  been  lost  to  the 
world.  His  name  should  be  here  and  wherever  this 
story  is  printed,  because  he  said  he  would  go  if  Roths- 
child would  pay  the  2,000  francs  to  the  sailor's  wife  be- 
fore he  started;  because  he  expected  to  be  drowned  on 
the  way  across. 

But  he  was  not  drowned.  He  landed  Rothschild  in 
Dover.  By  express  post  he  hastened  to  London.  The 
next  morning  he  was  at  his  usual  place  in  the  stock  ex- 
change. With  consummate  art  he  acted  his  part.  He 
was  as  pale  as  death  and  his  knees  shook. 

"  The  stock  brokers,  usually  so  cold-blooded,"  says 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         127 

Balla,1  "walked  about  restlessly,  speaking  little  to  each 
other,  every  man  shuddering  in  body  and  soul  as  if  in 
presence  of  some  dread  unknown.  Dismal  news  passed 
from  mouth  to  mouth.  In  a  low  tone  they  discussed 
the  defeat  of  Bliicher,  and  it  was  whispered  about  that 
Napoleon's  heavy  guard  had  beaten  Wellington's  army. 
Rumors  that  they  had  no  means  of  checking  sufficed  at 
such  a  time  to  make  them  lose  their  heads  altogether, 
and  the  state  of  things  was  made  worse  by  the  lamentable 
spectacle  that  Nathan  Rothschild  presented.  He  leaned 
against  a  column  like  a  man  who  was  condemned  to 
death,  and  seemed  hardly  able  to  stand  upon  his  feet; 
the  placid,  cold-blooded  Caesar  who  had  never  before  lost 
his  balance  in  the  most  furious  storms  of  the  financial 
world. 

"  What  they  had  regarded  as  idle  rumor  seemed  now 
to  take  the  shape  of  undeniable  truth,  for  the  countenance 
of  Nathan  Rothschild  told  more  than  the  vague  whis- 
pers of  the  crowd.  A  fear  amounting  to  panic  broke 
on  the  entire  exchange  like  a  flash  of  lightning;  the  pas- 
sionate and  irreconcilable  enemy  of  England  was  once 
more  free,  and  no  one  could  now  restrain  him  if  he  chose 
to  fall  on  Europe  again  as  the  scourge  of  God. 

"  The  fear  fell  on  the  city  like  a  devastating  cyclone. 
The  news  increased  in  volume  and  terror  and  filled  men 
with  alarm.  A  wild  panic  ensued.  The  rate  of  ex- 
change fell  from  minute  to  minute  until  it  reached  its 
lowest  point,  and,  when  it  was  seen  that  both  Rothschild 
and  his  agents  offered  securities  for  sale  in  large  quan- 
tities, even  flung  them  on  the  market,  nothing  could  ar- 
rest the  disaster.  It  was  as  if  a  mania  had  seized  the 
crowd;  in  a  few  minutes  the  strongest  banks  began  to 
waver  and  the  value  of  the  most  solid  securities  sank 

1The  Romance  of  the  Rothschilds,  p.  90. 


128      DUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

alarmingly  as  if  they  were  images  of  false  gods  which 
the  disillusioned  faithful,  thirsting  for  vengeance,  cast 
from  their  pedestals  and  trod  under  foot. 

"  Meantime  the  deathly  pale  man  at  the  column 
laughed  in  his  sleeve.  While  sympathetic  souls  ex- 
pressed their  concern  for  Nathan  Rothschild,  whose  great 
firm,  it  was  thought,  must  now  sink  into  the  dust,  de- 
stroyed by  its  colossal  losses,  he  was  quietly  buying  up  all 
the  securities  offered  by  means  of  secret  agents  whom  no 
one  knew.  ...  In  a  single  day  he  had  gained  nearly 
$5,000,000.  The  next  day  came  the  news  of  Napoleon's 
defeat.  Rothschild  himself  told  it  at  the  opening  of  the 
exchange,  with  radiant  countenance." 

Such  was  the  man  who  helped  Great  Britain  increase 
her  debt,  which,  in  1790,  was  little  more  than  $1,000,000,- 
ooo,  to  more  than  four  billions  at  the  close  of  the  Na- 
poleonic wars.  The  Napoleonic  wars  could  not  have 
been  fought  without  the  device  born  in  the  brain  of  Pitt 
and  put  into  practice  by  the  first  Rothschild.  The  liv- 
ing could  be  killed  in  such  colossal  numbers  only  by  mort- 
gaging the  earnings  of  the  unborn.  And  these  earnings 
were  mortgaged  far  into  the  future,  not  only  in  England, 
but  in  all  of  the  other  nations  concerned. 

Wars  are  supposed  to  be  declared  by  governments. 
Parliaments  and  kings  are  supposed  to  decide  whether 
hostilities  shall  begin.  Never,  since  the  device  of  the 
modern  national  debt,  has  this  been  true.  The  great  cap- 
italists decide  whether  there  shall  be  war.  If  they  want 
war,  they  force  it.  There  are  several  ways  in  which 
they  can  do  this.  They  can  do  it  by  direct  action  of  their 
representatives  in  government.  Or  they  can  do  it  by  fo- 
menting disorder  and  yelling  for  help  to  save  the  lives 
of  "  innocent  citizens  "  who  are  temporarily  residing  in 
the  country  that  is  to  be  attacked.  And  if  they  are  op- 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         129 

posed  to  war  they  refuse  to  advance  the  money  with 
which  to  wage  it. 

So  long  ago  as  during  the  lifetime  of  Nathan  Roths- 
child's mother  she  herself  was  aware  of  this  fact.  A 
woman  once  came  to  her  in  tears.  War  was  about  to 
break  out,  she  declared,  and  her  only  son  would  be  killed 
because  she  had  no  money  with  which  to  buy  his  relief 
from  military  service.  "  Do  not  be  alarmed,"  the  aged 
Mrs.  Rothschild  replied.  "  There  will  be  no  war.  My 
sons  will  not  provide  the  money  for  it." 

Yet  these  men  —  these  rich  men  of  the  Rothschild 
type  —  who  hold  in  their  hands  the  fates  of  little  peo- 
ples, are  exceedingly  common  clay.  We  are  always  told 
that  they  are  exceedingly  remarkable  men,  but  except 
for  their  remarkable  greed  and  their  unusual  capacity 
for  satisfying  it  this  is  not  so.  Nathan  Rothschild  was 
a  bold  gambler,  and  at  the  London  stock  exchange,  the 
day  following  Waterloo,  he  turned  a  very  pretty  trick, 
but  a  cheap  stockbroker  once  tricked  him  to  a  finish. 

The  stockbroker,  passing  Rothschild's  house  outside 
of  London  one  night,  noticed  a  light  burning  at  an  un- 
usual hour.  His  suspicion  that  some  plot  was  under 
way  was  increased  when  Rothschild  and  a  number  of 
men  entered  a  coach  and  ordered  the  driver  to  take  them 
to  Rothschild's  London  house.  The  stockbroker  or- 
dered a  carriage  and  hastened  after  them,  planning  by 
trick  and  device  to  get  into  the  house,  hear  what  they 
were  talking  about  and,  with  the  information  thus  gained, 
gamble  on  the  stock  market.  The  best  way  he  could 
think  of  to  get  into  the  house  was  to  burst  into  the  room 
in  which  they  were  holding  a  conference  and  fall  to  the 
floor  in  a  pretended  fit.  This  he  did,  hitting  the  rug 
like  an  ox  struck  with  an  ax.  Rothschild  himself  was 
one  of  the  first  to  pick  him  up  and  help  carry  him  to  a 


130      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

sofa.  Rothschild  himself  chafed  the  poor  gentleman's 
legs  in  an  effort  to  restore  circulation,  and  also  sprinkled 
him  with  cold  water.  While  the  man  did  not  appear  to 
regain  consciousness,  he  did  not  seem  to  be  dying,  so 
the  conference  continued.  At  the  conclusion  Rothschild 
told  his  servants  to  take  the  man  away  as  soon  as  he 
recovered.  Then  Rothschild  and  his  friends  departed. 
They  had  no  more  than  turned  the  corner  before  the  in- 
valid jumped  from  the  sofa  and  bounded  out  of  the 
house  like  a  rubber  ball.  The  next  day  he  plunged  on 
the  stocks  that  Rothschild  and  his  friends  were  prepared 
to  buy  and  made  a  fortune  while  they  made  nothing. 
Worse  than  that,  he  told  the  story  and  Rothschild  be- 
came, for  a  brief  moment,  the  laughing  stock  of  the  stock 
market. 

Nor  was  Nathan  Rothschild  happy.  He  jeered  at 
friends  who  suggested  that  with  his  wealth  and  standing 
he  should  be  in  the  enjoyment  of  great  bliss.  Like  all 
rich  men,  he  received  many  threatening  letters.  The  let- 
ters frightened  him.  He  lived  in  constant  terror  of  as- 
sassination. He  suspected  every  caller  whom  he  did  not 
know  of  being  a  possible  maniac  bent  upon  his  destruc- 
tion. It  is  related  of  him  that  two  men  suddenly  pre- 
sented themselves  before  him  in  his  office.  He  spoke 
to  them  and  they  did  not  reply.  Instead,  one  of  the  men 
began  to  fumble  in  his  pocket.  Rothschild  instantly 
began  to  hurl  at  them  every  portable  thing  he  could  lift, 
while  at  the  same  time  calling  loudly  for  help.  The  men 
were  country  bankers  who,  at  sight  of  the  great  banker, 
suddenly  lost  their  tongues.  The  man  who  fumbled  in 
his  pocket  sought  only  a  letter  of  introduction  that  he 
had  brought  with  him,  but  which,  owing  to  stage  fright, 
he  could  not  find. 

Bismarck,  with  all  his  "  blood  and  iron  "  foolishness, 


WAR  AND  THE  ROTHSCHILDS         131 

knew  how  to  detect  other  kinds  of  foolishness  in  other 
people. 

"  I  have  known  a  good  many  members  of  the  Roths- 
child house,"  he  said,  "  and  what  strikes  me  about  all  of 
them  is  their  love  for  money.  Each  of  them  is  always 
anxious  to  leave  to  each  of  his  children  as  much  as  he 
himself  inherited,  and  that  is  nonsense." 

Almost  a  hundred  years  ago  the  Rothschild  millions 
caused  the  emperor  of  Austria  to  "  ennoble  "  the  five 
Rothschild  brothers  by  "  creating  "  them  barons.  From 
that  day  to  this  no  male  member  of  the  family  has  lacked 
a  title.  The  present  head  of  the  English  Rothschilds  is 
a  lord.  That  does  not  indicate  what  he  is  so  much  as 
it  indicates  what  the  English  people  are.  Being  a 
Rothschild  no  longer  requires  conspicuous  ability.  The 
family  is  so  rich  that  if  it  were  composed  of  imbeciles 
it  could  hardly  avoid  making  money.  As  "  Baron " 
Albert  Rothschild  once  said :  "  The  House  of  Rothschild 
is  so  rich  that  it  cannot  do  bad  business."  And  yet  most 
people  in  the  world  are  so  poor  that  they  cannot  do  good 
business. 


CHAPTER  IX 

REPUDIATE   ALL   WAR   DEBTS 

WHEN  in  doubt  about  a  supposed  truth,  measure  it 
by  man.  See  if  it  fits  him  as  he  is.  See  if  it  fits 
him  as  he  hopes  to  be.  If  it  does  not  fit  him  both  ways, 
it  is  not  truth.  The  full  stature  of  man  is  the  standard 
measure  of  truth.  When  in  doubt,  we  must  go  back  to 
it  as  navigators,  betrayed  by  false  compasses,  go  back 
to  the  stars.  We  must  go  back  to  it  because  there  is 
no  other  place  to  go.  Whatever  is  best  for  man  is  the 
greatest  truth.  Whatever  is  worst  for  man  is  the  great- 
est error.  Nor  can  there  be  any  higher  morality 
than  this.  Any  plan  or  purpose  that  helps  the  race  can- 
not be  immoral.  Any  plan  or  purpose  that  hurts  the 
race  cannot  be  moral. 

I  have  laid  down  these  principles,  at  the  moment,  for 
a  particular  purpose.  Upon  the  basis  of  these  princi- 
ples, I  am  going  to  advocate  the  repudiation  of  every 
national  debt  in  the  world.  I  do  not  expect,  as  a  result, 
that  any  national  debt  will  soon  be  repudiated  —  the 
mass-mind,  unfortunately,  does  not  act  so  quickly.  But 
I  do  hope,  more  fervently  than  I  can  express,  that  the 
idea  will  take  root  in  the  minds  of  the  working  people 
to  whom  I  give  it.  I  hope  that  working  men  and 
women,  in  knots  of  two  and  three,  will  begin  talking 
about  it.  I  hope  the  groups  will  grow  both  in  number 
and  in  size.  I  hope  that  every  national  debt  pot-pie  will 
become  thoroughly  and  strongly  saturated  with  the  flavor 

132 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          133 

of  repudiation.  With  this  flavor,  the  bones  and  the  fat  of 
the  working  class  will  not  make  such  nice  picking.  Rich 
men  will  not  furnish  war  funds  to  fighting  governments 
if  the  reverberated  threat  of  repudiation  make  them 
doubt  whether  they  will  ever  receive  the  interest  upon 
their  bonds  —  let  alone,  the  face  of  the  bonds  themselves. 
And,  when  rich  men  become  afraid  to  stake  fighting  gov- 
ernments, wars  will  end,  because  wars  can  no  longer  be 
fought  with  the  revenues  that  can  be  derived  from  cur- 
rent taxation.  They  are  too  expensive  for  that.  Wars 
can  be  fought  only  by  mortgaging  unborn  generations  to 
the  day  of  doom. 

I  assert  that  it  is  immoral  (as  well  as  stupid)  even 
to  pay  the  interest  upon  national  debts  and  that  it  would 
be  the  highest  morality  to  repudiate  the  debts  themselves. 
"  The  national  debts  of  the  world,"  says  David  Starr 
Jordan,  President  of  Stanford  University,1  "  when  fully 
analyzed,  are  war  debts,  pure  and  simple."  War  debts, 
no  more  than  wars,  are  ever  pure  and  simple.  They 
are  always  impure  and  complex.  Wars  are  always  con- 
flicts for  advantage  between  ruling  classes,  in  which  the 
working  classes  do  the  fighting  and  the  paying  while 
the  ruling  classes  do  the  winning. 

These  debts,  which  were  immorally  made,  cannot  be 
morally  paid.  They  cannot  be  morally  paid,  because 
even  to  pay  the  interest  upon  them  means  to  tap  the 
veins  of  the  working  class  until  the  end  of  time.  I  say 
"  until  the  end  of  time,"  because  it  is  manifestly  the  in- 
tention of  the  exploiting  classes  to  keep  these  debts  in- 
tact to  the  end  that  they  may  draw  interest  forever. 
Who  knows  of  a  great  nation  on  earth  that  is  paying 
its  debt?  The  debt  line  of  every  nation  proceeds  along 
a  zigzag  course,  but  its  general  direction  is  upward. 

1M  Unseen  Empire,"  p.  26. 


134      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

It  is  monstrous  that  the  working  class  of  Great  Brit- 
ain should  pay  interest,  until  the  end  of  time,  upon  debts 
that  were  contracted,  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  working 
class,  but  to  the  great  harm  and  injury  of  that  class.  It 
is  also  inconceivable  that  it  should  do  so.  It  will  prob- 
ably be  a  long  while  before  time  ends.  Some  time  in 
the  interval  people  are  going  to  wake  up.  There  will 
be  talk  of  repudiation.  More  than  that,  there  will  be 
repudiation.  The  time  to  begin  the  talk  is  now.  The 
time  to  begin  the  actual  repudiation  will  be  the  earliest 
moment  at  which  the  working  class  can  be  made  to  put 
its  shears  to  the  knot.  And,  what  is  true  of  Great  Brit- 
ain is  true  of  the  ^United  States  as  well  —  and  of  every 
other  nation.  They  are  all  in  the  same  boat.  The 
amount  of  their  respective  debts  differ,  but  the  principles 
that  underlie  them  do  not  differ.  Nor  will  there  be  any 
difference  in  the  consequences  that  will  follow  eternal 
recognition  of  the  debts. 

We  have  all  been  educated,  it  is  true,  to  shrink  at  the 
sound  of  the  word  "  repudiation/'  We  have  been 
taught  to  believe  that  the  word  is  stained  with  shame 
and  steeped  with  dishonor.  Who  so  teaches  us?  Do 
we  never  ask  ourselves  that  ?  Why  is  repudiation  neces- 
sarily shameful?  Do  we  never  ask  ourselves  that?  Is 
it  shameful  to  repudiate  wrong  to  take  up  right?  Is  it 
shameful  to  repudiate  a  criminal  arrangement  that  was 
foisted  upon  us  by  men  intent  upon  robbing  us?  Is  it 
shameful  to  repudiate  a  criminal  arrangement  that  will 
keep  the  world  embroiled  in  wars  so  long  as  it  endures? 
Ought  this  arrangement  to  be  permitted  to  exist  for- 
ever, even  though  the  price  of  its  existence  be  wars  for- 
ever and  greater  robbery  than  ever  —  greater  robbery  as 
war  debts  become  larger  and  larger?  The  United 
States  government,  after  the  Civil  War,  certainly  did 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          135 

not  hesitate  to  compel  the  South  to  repudiate  its  war 
debt.  It  forbade  the  South  to  pay  the  debt.  The  gov- 
ernment thus  sought  to  protect  its  life  by  making  re- 
bellion dangerous  even  to  money-lenders.  Why  then, 
may  not  a  whole  people,  or  a  whole  world,  with  equal  pro- 
priety, repudiate  war  debts  that  are  intended  to  rob  them 
for  all  time? 

Oh,  Mr.  Taft  will  tell  you  that  you  should  bend  to 
your  burden  and  protect  your  "  honor."  Every  rich 
man  in  the  United  States  will  so  tell  you.  Some  of  them 
may  even  whimper  a  little  about  the  "  widows  and  or- 
phans "  who  would  be  thrown  into  the  poorhouse  if  the 
national  bonds  upon  which  they  are  now  living  were  to 
be  repudiated.  They  may  even  most  carefully  explain 
to  you  that  these  widows  and  orphans  are  "  innocent 
persons  ";  that,  regardless  of  whether  there  was  ever  any 
chicanery  in  the  creation  of  war  debts,  these  "  widows 
and  orphans "  are  nevertheless  not  guilty.  But  why 
should  you  have  the  slightest  interest  in  what  Mr.  Taft 
and  these  other  gentlemen  may  say?  Who  is  Mr.  Taft? 
Who  are  the  other  gentlemen?  Who  are  you?  Can 
you  not  think  for  yourself?  Do  you  need  to  have  Mr. 
Taft  think  for  you  ?  Do  you  need  to  have  anybody  else 
think  for  you?  Cannot  you  measure  supposed  truth  by 
yourself  once  in  a  while?  Do  you  never  know  how  you 
feel  about  anything  ?  Have  you  no  respect  for  your  own 
feelings  when  you  know  what  they  are? 

What  this  world  needs  more  than  almost  anything 
else  is  independence  of  thought.  The  average  man  has 
no  confidence  in  his  own  judgment  unless  his  judgment 
happens  to  coincide  with  that  of  somebody  whom  he 
believes  to  be  wise.  If  the  average  man  has  a  thought 
that  is  different  from  the  prevailing  thought  of  the  day, 
he  suspects  both  himself  and  his  thought.  He  believes 


136      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

he  cannot  think  straight  and  he  decides  that  his  thought 
is  crooked. 

The  result  is  that  a  few  men  do  the  thinking  for  all 
the  others.  And  who  are  these  few  men?  Most  of 
them  are  gentlemen  who  have  some  sort  of  connection 
with  the  coffers  of  the  rich.  These  gentlemen  teach  us 
what  is  moral  and  what  is  immoral.  We  do  not  let 
burglars  tell  us  that  it  is  immoral  to  hire  policemen  to 
chase  burglars,  but  we  let  capitalists  tell  us  that  it  is 
immoral  to  repudiate  fraudulent  debts  that  capitalists 
have  foisted  upon  us  for  their  own  enrichment.  It  is 
not  immoral  for  a  capitalist  to  repudiate  an  obligation 
that  has  been  fraudulently  placed  upon  him  by  another 
capitalist.  Indeed,  it  is  not.  It  is  entirely  moral  to  re- 
pudiate such  an  obligation.  The  courts  are  always  lis- 
tening to  such  wrangles.  A  fraudulent  contract  be- 
comes moral  only  when  it  is  aimed  at  no  capitalists  — 
when,  instead,  it  is  aimed  at  the  people  and  capitalists 
are  at  the  trigger. 

Each  of  these  statements  is  true.  Mr.  Taft  is  feeding 
at  the  capitalist  crib  and  has  so  fed  all  his  life.  At 
present,  he  happens  to  draw  his  sustenance  from  Yale, 
an  institution  in  which  a  poor  boy  of  any  sensibilities 
would  feel  about  as  much  at  home  as  a  tramp  would  feel 
at  an  Astor  coming-out  party.  Prior  to  his  Yale  en- 
gagement, he  had  spent  his  adult  life  drawing  some  sort 
of  a  salary  from  the  government.  He  could  not  hold 
his  Yale  position,  nor  could  he  have  held  any  of  his 
other  positions,  if  he  had  not  expressed  the  capitalist 
view  with  regard  to  the  "  sacredness  "  of  national  debts. 
Unquestionably,  he  believes  national  debts  are  sacred. 
But  the  point  is,  that  if  Mr.  Taft  had  never  been  de- 
pendent upon  capitalists  for  his  sustenance,  he  might 
not  have  been  dependent  upon  them  for  his  opinions.  If 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          137 

his  way  through  life  had  been  hard,  he  might  have  given 
some  thought  as  to  why  it  was  hard.  And,  if  rich  men 
were  not  the  beneficiaries  of  the  system  that  creates  na- 
tional debts,  these  rich  men,  too,  might  have  entirely 
different  opinions  with  regard  to  the  "  immorality  "  of 
repudiating  debts  that  were  never  incurred  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  people,  but  which  will,  unless  repudiated,  run 
to  the  end  of  time  to  the  great  harm  of  the  people. 

Indeed,  we  need  accept  no  lesser  authority  than  Wil- 
liam Pitt  himself,  the  originator  of  the  modern  national 
debt,  to  justify  the  repudiation  of  all  national  debts. 
William  Pitt  conceived  the  idea  of  spending  national  in- 
come, not  for  current  expenses,  but  to  pay  the  interest 
upon  as  much  money  as  he  could  borrow.  The  con- 
ception was  precisely  what  he  needed,  because  it  enabled 
him  to  lay  his  hands  upon  approximately  twenty  times 
as  much  money  as  he  could  otherwise  have  obtained. 
The  only  questionable  feature  about  it  was  that  it  left 
great  debts  for  posterity  to  pay.  Pitt  said  he  did  not 
care  about  posterity.  David  Starr  Jordan  declares 
Pitt's  view  to  have  been  that  "  the  owners  of  England 
were  the  people  actually  alive  at  any  given  time.  The 
past  had  no  stake  in  it;  the  future  had  acquired  no  in- 
terest. Therefore,  if  the  men  of  Great  Britain  chose 
to  mortgage  their  nation  to  secure  some  present  good, 
it  was  their  right." 

I  perceive  no  flaw  in  Pitt's  logic.  But  I  respectfully 
call  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  is  dead.  As  a  dead 
Englishman,  he  has  no  rights.  Nor  have  his  friends 
any  rights,  because  they,  too,  are  dead.  Most  of  the 
Englishmen  who  followed  Pitt  and  helped  pile  up  four 
thousand  millions  of  national  debt  are  also  dead.  They 
are  now  in  a  position  to  be  treated  precisely  as  Eng- 
lishmen now  living  were  treated  by  Mr.  Pitt  and  his 


138      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

friends  before  the  present  generation  were  born.  Mr. 
Pitt  contemptuously  snapped  his  fingers  at  what  unborn 
generations  might  think  of  the  debts  that  he  had  piled  up 
for  them  to  pay.  Why  may  not  the  present  generation 
as  logically  snap  its  fingers  at  Mr.  Pitt's  debts  —  and 
all  the  other  debts  that  have  been  contracted  since  his 
time?  Why  may  not  the  present  generation  of  English- 
men as  consistently  snap  their  fingers  at  what  unborn 
generations  of  capitalist  grafters  may  think  of  the  re- 
pudiation of  bonds  upon  which  they  would  have  drawn 
interest  if  the  bonds  had  been  permitted  to  exist?  And, 
what  Englishmen  may  consistently  do,  why  may  not  all 
other  peoples  in  like  circumstances  also  do? 

It  is  a  poor  rule  that  will  not  work  both  ways.  Too 
long  have  the  common  people  of  this  world  been  the 
victims  of  rules  that  were  permitted  to  work  only  against 
them.  Our  whole  code  of  financial  morals  is  composed 
of  such  rules.  The  common  people  are  taught  by  the 
capitalists  who  exploit  them  that  nothing  is  more  repre- 
hensible than  to  buy  something  from  a  capitalist  and  not 
pay  for  it.  The  twin  brother  of  this  rule  would  be  that 
no  capitalist  should  ever  sell  anything  to  the  common 
people  that  was  not  precisely  what  it  purported  to  be, 
and  which  was  not  also  actually  worth  the  money  paid 
for  it.  Do  you  see  this  twin  brother  around  very 
numerously  in  the  stores?  Do  you  see  him  in  real  es- 
tate offices?  Indeed,  you  do  not.  The  rule  of  the  cap- 
italist world  is  to  sting  the  buyer  as  badly  as  he  can  be 
stung.  The  stinging  is  done  in  two  ways.  Either  the 
price  is  right  and  the  quality  is  not,  or  the  quality  is 
right  and  the  price  is  not.  In  either  case  the  customer 
is  flimflammed.  In  one  case  he  pays  too  much  for  a 
poor  article,  and  in  the  other  he  pays  too  much  for  a 
good  article. 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          139 

In  neither  case,  of  course,  is  the  customer  compelled 
to  buy  —  oh,  no.  He  may  starve  or  freeze  to  death  if 
he  should  prefer.  The  capitalist  always  virtuously  falls 
back  upon  the  principle  of  the  common  law :  "  Let  the 
buyer  beware."  Let  the  buyer  exercise  "judgment." 
Let  him  not  be  deceived  by  tradesmen  who  charge  too 
much.  Let  him  remember,  above  all  things,  that  he  has 
the  blessed  privilege  of  "  freedom  of  contract "  and  that 
nobody,  therefore,  can  coerce  him  into  buying  anything 
at  a  price  that  does  not  suit  him. 

But  no  capitalist  ever  entertains  the  thought  that  any- 
thing dishonorable  attaches  to  a  mercantile  fortune  com- 
posed of  dollars  charged  in  excess  of  the  real  value  of 
the  things  sold.  The  test  of  virtue  that  capitalists  apply 
among  themselves  is  simply,  "  Can  we  get  away  with 
it?"  If  a  merchant  can  charge  too  much  and  "get 
away  with  it,"  his  fortune  is  an  honorable  monument  to 
his  business  sagacity,  and  he,  himself,  is  a  credit  to  his 
community.  But  this  test  is  for  capitalists  only.  For 
a  workingman  it  is  always  wrong  to  cheat  —  the  capital- 
ist. Even  if  the  workingman  "  gets  away  with  it "  it 
is  wrong.  If  he  cheats  his  grocer,  dodges  rent  by  mov- 
ing nights,  buys  his  clothes  on  credit  and  never  pays 
for  them  —  in  short,  if  he  manages  his  affairs  so 
"  shrewdly  "  that,  in  the  course  of  a  dozen  years  he  is 
able  to  buy  a  $2,500  cottage,  even  then  he  is  not  hailed 
by  the  local  capitalists  as  a  "prominent  citizen."  He 
is  only  a  dead  beat.  But,  in  actual  fact  he  differs  from 
the  merchant  prince  dead  beat  only  in  the  circumstance 
that  the  merchant  prince  has  made  a  million  out  of  his 
knavery  while  the  workingman  .has  accumulated  only 
$2,500. 

Why  should  the  common  people  of  this  world  any 
longer  permit  such  a  class  to  tell  them  what  is  moral  and 


140      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

what  is  not  ?  Why  should  not  the  common  people  begin 
to  build  a  code  of  business  morals  of  their  own?  As  a 
matter  of  justice,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  common 
people  should  not  at  once  begin  to  dead  beat  tradesmen 
to  the  extent  that  tradesmen  charge  them  more  for  goods 
than  the  goods  are  worth;  nobody  now  pays  the  prices 
demanded  for  coal  and  meat  because  he  wants  to  or  be- 
cause he  believes  those  prices  are  just.  I  do  not  advo- 
cate the  cheating  of  tradesmen  because  nobody  knows 
where  to  draw  the  line  between  what  they  are  entitled 
to  and  what  they  charge.  Lacking  a  line,  one  form  of 
robbery  would  simply  be  exchanged  for  another.  In- 
stead of  the  tradesman  robbing  the  customer,  the  cus- 
tomer would  rob  the  tradesman.  That,  perhaps,  would 
be  a  delightful  change  to  many  customers,  and,  in  prin- 
ciple, it  would  be  no  worse  than  the  present  system.  But 
what  this  world  needs  is  not  more  or  different  robbery, 
but  more  honesty.  We  shall  progress  only  as  we  be- 
come more  nearly  fair  in  dealing  with  each  other.  We 
should  only  intensify  robbery  by  becoming  a  world  of 
dead  beats.  We  should  have  no  right  to  withhold  from 
tradesmen  what  we  might  happen  to  believe  they  wrong- 
fully extort,  from  us,  because  we  have  no  means  of 
knowing  how  much  this  extortion  is.  But  we  know 
exactly  how  great  is  the  element  of  robbery  in  the  thirty- 
seven  thousand  millions  of  national  debts  that  are 
charged  up  against  the  world.  The  element  of  robbery 
is  precisely  thirty-seven  thousand  millions,  because  the 
debts  all  represent  the  cost  of  wars  waged  by  groups  of 
capitalists  for  their  own  enrichment. 

The  greatest  reason,  however,  for  repudiating  national 
debts  is  to  make  war  impossible.  Please  consider  what 
would  be  the  present  situation  in  Germany  if  there  were 
abroad  in  the  land  a  strong  sentiment  in  favor  of  the 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          141 

repudiation  of  the  five  billions  owed  by  the  imperial  and 
state  governments.  Germany  is  preparing  to  go  to  war. 
The  historian  of  the  Prussian  army,  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Baron  von  der  Ostensacken  in  1913  wrote  a  book  in 
which  he  declared  that  "  a  world-wide  war  is  unavoid- 
able." In  this,  of  course,  he  may  be  in  error,  but  he  is 
not  in  error  in  declaring  that  the  governing  class  in 
Germany  believes  a  great  war  is  coming.  Germany  is 
extending  itself  to  the  limit  to  be  ready.  She  is  increas- 
ing one  of  her  war  chests  from  $30,000,000  to  $90,000,- 
ooo.  She  is  raising  $250,000,000  by  a  special  tax.  She 
is  adding  $50,000,000  to  her  regular  annual  outlay  for 
military  expenses,  which  is  already  $318,000,000.  She 
is  preparing  for  a  war  that  Edgar  Crammond  declared 
in  a  recent  issue  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  would  cost 
Germany  one  billion  eight  hundred  millions  during  the 
first  six  months. 

Of  course,  the  war,  if  it  comes  will  be  only  a  colossal 
curse  to  the  common  people  of  .Germany.  It  could  not 
come  if  the  capitalists  of  Germany  and  the  capitalists 
of  some  other  nations  were  not  bent  upon  the  robbery 
of  each  other.  As  it  is,  no  such  war  could  come  if  it 
were  incumbent  upon  the  German  government  to  tax 
one  billion  eight  hundred  millions  out  of  the  people  as 
rapidly  as  the  guns  burned  it  up  —  or  keep  the  peace. 
No  nation  in  the  world  could  raise  so  great  an  amount 
of  money  in  so  short  a  time  —  not  at  least,  without 
hurling  the  nation  into  certain  and  terrible  bankruptcy. 
But  any  great  nation  can  raise  this  sum  by  mortgaging 
its  unborn  generations  until  the  end  of  time.  It  is  there- 
fore entirely  possible  that  the  Prussian  army  officer 
whose  book  was  stamped  with  the  "  complete  approval  " 
of  the  unofficial  organ  of  the  German  war  office,  may  be 
right.  Germany,  indeed,  may  be  embroiled  in  a  world- 


142      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

wide  war,  because  under  the  deferred  payment  system 
of  national  debts,  Germany  can  raise  the  money  to 
fight  it. 

How  much  could  the  Kaiser  raise  for  war  if  his  work- 
ing people  were  talking  noisily  and  rather  carelessly 
about  the  repudiation  of  all  war  debts?  Do  you  be- 
lieve, if  such  were  the  talk,  that  the  gentlemen  who  are 
already  bleeding  Germany  out  of  the  interest  upon  five 
billions  which  they  have  already  lent  —  do  you  believe 
they  would  be  willing  to  lend  almost  two  billions  more, 
only  to  have  the  whole  seven  billions  repudiated?  Do 
you  believe  that  if  repudiation  were  threatened  all 
around  the  world  that  any  nation  could  borrow  enough 
money  to  attack  Germany? 

Don't  forget:  war  cannot  be  fought  without  money 
—  thousands  of  millions  of  it.  War  too,  with  the  rest 
of  the  world,  has  changed.  Men  are  not  enough.  Guns 
are  not  enough.  The  modern  machinery  of  war  has 
made  it  so  expensive  that  the  living  cannot  pay  the  cost. 
The  cost  can  be  paid  only  by  charging  it  against  those 
whose  hearts  have  not  yet  begun  to  beat  and  which  will 
not,  perhaps,  begin  to  beat  for  half  a  century.  The 
fraudulent  system  of  incurring  national  debts  that  can 
never  be  paid  is  intended  to  prolong  this  misery  until 
the  last  heart  on  earth  has  stopped  beating. 

Is  it  not  worth  while  to  take  the  weapons  away  from 
these  brawling  marauders  and  compel  them  to  keep  the 
peace?  Oh,  of  course!  Everybody  is  against  war. 
But  have  you  noticed  how  strangely  the  capitalist  gen- 
tlemen who  are  trying  to  spare  us  from  further  wars 
are  going  about  it  to  execute  their  benevolent  designs? 
Suppose  these  gentlemen,  instead  of  trying  to  end  war 
for  us,  were  trying  to  stop  drinking  whiskey.  Let  us 
imagine  these  gentlemen  as  the  town  drunkards  of  their 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          143 

respective  communities.  As  town  drunkards  they  have 
shot  up  their  streets,  beaten  inoffensive  citizens,  robbed 
wayfarers,  and  generally  made  themselves  spectacles. 
The  carousing  has  not  been  without  compensation,  how- 
ever, because  robbery  pays  —  and  they  rob.  But  even- 
tually, they  profess  a  change  of  heart  and  become  de- 
clared advocates  of  total  abstinence.  They  beat  their 
breasts  and  call  upon  all  men  to  witness  their  sincerity. 
But,  with  their  beating,  they  also  do  a  little  qualifying. 
Whiskey,  of  course,  is  bad  —  but  then.  It  is  some- 
times necessary,  you  know.  People  have  been  known 
to  drop  dead  because  there  was  no  whiskey  near  at  hand 
to  save  them.  It  is  always  best  to  be  prepared.  What 
should  you  say  if,  upon  examination,  you  should  dis- 
cover that  each  of  these  gentlemen,  who,  when  he  was 
a  common  drunkard,  had  a  jug  of  whiskey  in  his  cellar, 
now  had  eight  barrels?  If  each  of  the  gentlemen  were 
continuing  to  drink  and  rob  as  much  as  ever,  should  you 
pay  much  attention  to  their  pleas  for  temperance,  or 
their  explanations  that  the  eight  barrels  of  whiskey  in 
each  cellar  were  merely  for  emergency  use  in  case  of 
sudden  heart  failure? 

Why,  then,  does  any  sane  person  concede  the  slight- 
est sincerity  to  the  protestations  of  our  capitalist  states- 
men, philosophers  and  flunkeys  in  general,  that  they  are 
opposed  to  war?  They  are  preparing  for  war  as  they 
never  before  prepared  —  not  only  in  the  United  States, 
but  in  every  other  large  nation.  Twenty-five  years 
ago  —  in  1889  —  Congress  appropriated  $44,000,000 
for  the  Army  and  $21,000,000  for  the  Navy.  For  the 
fiscal  year  that  began  on  July  i,  1913,  Congress  appro- 
priated $94,000,000  for  the  Army  and  $141,000,000  for 
the  Navy.  In  1899  we  did  not  have  a  battleship.  Now 
we  have  thirty-eight.  We  went  into  the  Spanish  War 


144      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

with  only  five  battleships  that  cost  $3,000,000  apiece. 
Now  that  we  are  trying  to  rid  ourselves  of  the  horrible 
curse  of  war,  we  are  paying  $7,500,000  apiece.  In  fifteen 
years,  the  price  will  very  likely  be  $12,000,000.  In 
fifteen  years,  each  of  our  present  thirty-eight  battleships 
will  be  obsolete,  precisely  as  the  battleships  of  the 
Spanish  war  period  are  now  obsolete.  Also,  in  fifteen 
years,  the  capitalists  who  are  trying  so  hard  to  end  war 
will  undoubtedly  have  so  far  succeeded  that  we  shall 
then  require  no  more  than  100  battleships  to  "protect 
our  interests."  A  hundred  battleships  at  $12,000,000 
apiece  will  cost  only  one  billion  two  hundred  million 
dollars,  which  none  of  us,  of  course,  will  miss.  Also, 
it  will  cost  a  few  dollars  now  and  then  to  keep  those  100 
battleships  in  commission.  • 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  while  our  national  debt  is  not  yet 
so  large  as  that  of  Great  Britain,  France  or  Germany, 
we  are  racing  more  rapidly  than  any  other  nation  toward 
the  cataclysm  that  the  crime  of  militarism  invites.  In 
other  words,  this  government  is  devoting  a  greater  pro- 
portion of  its  expenditures  to  wars,  past  and  future, 
than  is  any  other  nation.  The  congressional  appropria- 
tions for  the  year  ending  June  30,  1914,  for  instance,  are, 
in  round  numbers,  $685,000,000.  Our  appropriations  for 
army,  navy,  fortifications  and  pensions  are  $433,000,- 
ooo,  or  64  per  cent,  of  our  national  expenditures.  I 
have  not  the  latest  figures  for  foreign  nations,  but  in 
1911,  Germany  spent  only  43  per  cent,  of  her  appropria-  { 
tions  for  war,  Great  Britain  34,  France  31,  Russia  23, 
and  Japan  32. 

Here  are  some  other  facts  that  anybody  who  regards 
them  as  worth  while  may  ponder  over : 

The  military  expenditures  of  the  leading  seven  mili- 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          145 

tary  nations  increased  from  1881  to  1911  from  $656,- 
000,000  to  $1,800,000,000  a  year. 

The  public  debts  of  the  five  great  military  nations  of 
Europe  have  more  than  doubled  during  the  last  twenty 
years. 

The  interest  charges  of  these  nations  have  quadrupled 
during  the  last  thirty  years. 

Every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  United  States 
must  pay  $4.70  in  1914  to  make  up  the  appropriations 
for  wars,  past  and  future.  In  other  words,  the  head  of 
a  family  of  five  must  pay,  when  he  buys  groceries,  and 
other  supplies,  $23.50  to  the  war  fund.  A  French 
family  of  the  same  size  pays  $35 ;  an  English  family  $38. 
Moreover,  the  poor  people  who  do  the  paying  in  time  of 
peace,  do  the  fighting  and  the  dying  in  time  of  war. 

The  plain  fact  is  that  the  rich  men  of  the  world  can- 
not be  depended  upon  to  prevent  war.  If  the  working 
men  and  women  want  war  stopped,  they  will  have  to 
stop  it.  In  what  better  way  can  they  stop  it  than  to 
begin  to  agitate  in  favor  of  the  repudiation  of  all  war 
debts?  Let  the  talk  become  loud  enough  —  let  enough 
men  and  women  take  part  in  it  —  and  a  cloud  will  at 
once  be  cast  upon  every  war  bond  in  existence.  The 
capitalist,  so  far  as  lending  money  is  concerned,  is  a 
fair-weather  bird.  He  is  afraid  of  clouds.  If  he  be- 
lieves public  sentiment  is  swerving  toward  the  repudia- 
tion of  war  debts,  he  will  be  exceedingly  slow  to  invest 
his  money  in  more  war  bonds.  That  will  dry  up  the 
wellsprings  of  the  fighters.  If  they  cannot  borrow,  they 
cannot  -  engage  in  war.  Then  we  shall  have  peace. 

How  long  shall  we,  of  the  United  States,  have  peace, 
with  the  government  able  to  mortgage  unborn  genera- 
tions? Who  can  tell?  Nobody.  The  second  war  with 
Mexico  came  upon  us  like  a  midnight  peal  of  thunder. 


146      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

We  had  long  heard  the  distant  rumbling.  We  had  long 
known  that  war  might  come.  Yet  when  war  actually 
began,  nobody  was  more  stunned  than  the  people  of  the 
United  States. 

No  war  better  illustrates  the  danger  of  great  military 
establishments.  President  Wilson  is  a  man  of  peace. 
When  war  came,  probably  no  one  was  more  stunned 
than  Mr.  Wilson.  Yet  history  will  place  upon  Mr. 
Wilson  the  responsibility  for  bringing  about  the  war. 
He  did  not  intend  to  bring  it  about,  but  he  did  bring  it 
about.  If  the  United  States  had  not  been  powerfully 
armed,  he  would  not  have  done  so. 

Let  us  not  blink  the  facts.  General  Huerta  overthrew 
and  usurped  the  powers  of  government  in  Mexico.  Un- 
less current  history  does  him  great  injustice,  he  went 
into  office  with  blood  on  his  hands.  As  a  mere  matter 
of  international  law,  he  was  undoubtedly  entitled  to 
recognition  as  the  head  of  the  Mexican  state.  Great 
Britain  recognized  him  as  such.  France  recognized  him 
as  such.  Germany  recognized  him  as  such.  The  United 
States  did  not.  Woodrow  Wilson  stood  in  the  way.  He 
said,  in  effect,  that  he  would  enter  into  no  governmental 
relationships  with  a  man  who  rose  to  power  over  the 
body  of  his  murdered  predecessor. 

President  Wilson  shall  not  here  be  criticised  because 
he  refused  to  recognize  the  government  of  General 
Huerta.  International  law  may  not  have  been  on  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  side,  but  every  instinct  of  decency  was  on 
his  side.  Rulers  of  states  often  set  aside  international 
law  to  express  their  personal  preferences  in  such  matters. 
Mr.  Taft  never  recognized  the  republic  of  China,  though 
the  republic  of  China,  when  Mr.  Taft  went  out  of  office, 
had  been  in  existence  more  than  a  year.  Mr.  Wilson 
was  entirely  within  his  rights  when  he  speedily  recog- 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS          147 

nized  the  Oriental  republic  that  Mr.  Taft  had  refused  to 
recognize,  and  withheld  his  recognition  from  the  Mexican 
dictatorship  that  Mr.  Taft  was  about  to  recognize. 

So  far,  so  good.  But  a  different  aspect  was  placed 
upon  the  situation  when  Mr.  Wilson  set  about  it  to  drive 
General  Huerta  from  power.  A  different  aspect  was 
placed  upon  the  situation  when  Mr.  Wilson  sent  John 
Lind  to  Mexico,  with  instructions  to  set  in  motion  the 
machinery  for  General  Huerta's  elimination.  What  those 
instructions  were,  perhaps  the  world  will  never  know. 
We  may  judge  what  they  were,  however,  from  the  in- 
spired reports  that  soon  began  to  find  their  way  into 
American  newspapers.  Persuasion  was  first  tried. 
Then  an  effort  was  made  to  starve  Huerta  out  by  cut- 
ting off  his  money  supplies.  Mr.  Wilson  once  believed 
and  said  that  General  Huerta  was  tottering  to  his  fall 
as  the  result  of  inability  to  get  money  with  which  to 
carry  on  his  government,  but  Mr.  Wilson  was  wrong. 
General  Huerta  obtained  money  —  money  by  the  million. 

As  it  became  evident  that  Huerta  could  not  be  starved 
out,  Mr.  Wilson's  determination  to  drive  him  out  of 
office  seemed  to  grow.  Mr.  Wilson's  iron  jaw  was  not 
put  on  him  by  mistake.  He  is  not  a  man  to  come  to 
quick  conclusions,  but  when  he  makes  up  his  mind  to 
do  a  thing  and  has  the  power  to  do  it,  he  does  that  thing. 
Nor  is  he  a  man  without  a  temper.  The  more  that 
Huerta  resisted  him,  the  more  he  disliked  Huerta.  I 
was  in  the  White  House  during  February  before  the 
war  began  and  saw  Mr.  Wilson's  hatred  of  Huerta  flash 
up  like  a  flame.  "  What  can  General  Huerta  do,"  in- 
quired a  visitor,  "  to  obtain  recognition  from  this  gov- 
ernment?" Mr.  Wilson's  jaws  went  together  and  bit 
off  the  one  word  "  Nothing."  He  did  not  storm  as  Mr. 
Roosevelt  might  have  done.  He  hardly  raised  his  voice. 


148      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

But  in  his  quiet  demeanor  was  packed  all  the  determina- 
tion that  can  be  put  into  the  human  intellect.  If  I  had 
been  Huerta,  I  should  have  feared  that  man. 

Huerta  did  not  know  Mr.  Wilson,  but  hated  him. 
Huerta  had  every  reason  to  hate  Mr.  Wilson.  Unless 
we  know  better,  we  always  hate  those  who  are  in  our 
way.  Mr.  Wilson  was  in  General  Huerta's  way.  Mr. 
Wilson  stood  in  the  way  of  the  complete  realization  of 
General  Huerta's  greatest  ambition.  And,  quite  natu- 
rally, Huerta's  hatred  of  Wilson  was  reflected,  more  or 
less,  by  the  officers  who  served  under  Huerta. 

It  was  the  reflection  of  Huerta's  hatred  by  his  sub- 
ordinates that  caused  the  insults  that  precipitated  war. 
Never  before  did  we  go  to  war  (unless  the  war  of  1812 
be  considered  an  exception)  as  the  result  of  an  insult  to 
our  flag.  Benjamin  Franklin  once  said  that  no  cause 
was  sufficient  to  create  war  between  two  nations  that 
wished  to  keep  the  peace  and  that  no  cause  was  too  small 
to  provoke  war  between  two  nations  that  wished  to  fight 
each  other.  More  than  a  hundred  years  after  Franklin's 
death,  his  wisdom  comes  back  to  us*  Huerta  apologized 
(orally  and  by  proxy)  for  the  insults  tha,t  had  been 
offered  through  his  government,  to  our  flag.  Mr.  Wilson 
said  he  must  salute  the  flag. 

Why  came  the  second  war  with  Mexico  ?  Because  two 
men  fell  out,  and  one  of  them,  having  the  power  to  de- 
stroy, by  force  of  arms,  the  power  of  the  other,  deter- 
mined to  resort  to  war.  Starting  with  the  best  inten- 
tions, Mr.  Wilson  gradually  became  enmeshed  in  the 
most  tactless  actions.  If  Mr.  Wilson  had  contented  him- 
self with  the  refusal  to  recognize  Huerta,  the  second  war 
with  Mexico  would  have  been  indefinitely  postponed. 
But  the  moment  Mr.  Wilson  sent  Mr.  Lind  to  Mexico 
for  the  purpose  of  driving  Huerta  from  power  —  that 
moment  Mr,  Wilson  set  his  feet  upon  dangerous  ways. 


REPUDIATE  ALL  WAR  DEBTS         I48a 

Mr.  Wilson's  state  of  mind  being  what  it  was,  from  the 
moment  the  demand  was  made  upon  Huerta  to  retire  the 
question  of  peace  or  war  passed  to  the  hands  of  Huerta. 
No  nation  can  make  a  demand  without  suffering  humilia- 
tion if  the  demand  be  refused.  Mr.  Wilson  placed  him- 
self in  a  position  where,  in  the  event  of  opposition,  he 
must  fight  or  be  humiliated.  General  Huerta  provided 
the  opposition  and  Mr.  Wilson  provided  the  war. 
•  Mr.  Wilson's  misfortune  —  and  the  misfortune  of  the 
American  people  —  was  due  to  the  fact  that  he  had  at 
his  elbow  too  many  great  military  weapons.  If  he  had 
known,  at  the  beginning,  that  he  could  not  force  Huerta 
out,  he  would  not  have  demanded  that  he  go.  Switzer- 
land never  demands  that  the  reigning  dynasty  of  Great 
Britain  shall  renounce  the  throne.  But  Mr.  Wilson  had 
the  men,  the  ships  and  the  money  with  which  to  whip 
Mexico,  and,  without  realizing  it,  events  drove  him  into 
a  position  where  he  determined  to  use  his  power. 

The  possession  of  weapons  always  carries  with  it  the 
temptation  to  use  them.  When  we  were  practically  un- 
armed, thirty-five  years  ago,  we  were  in  no  danger.  No- 
body tried  to  attack  us.  Nobody  dared  to  attack  us. 
Everybody  knew  that,  if  attacked,  we  could  overwhelm 
any  nation  that  should  attempt  to  land  an  army  upon  our 
shores.  We  could  do  the  same  to-day.  We  need  no 
navy.  We  need  no  more  than  the  skeleton  of  an  army. 
With  such  land  fortifications  as  we  have,  or  could  easily 
provide,  nobody  could  capture  a  city,  and  certainly  no 
nation  would  be  so  foolish  as  to  try  to  land  an  army 
among  us. 

With  the  money  that  we  are  wasting  upon  military 
expenditures,  we  could  annually  build  a  double-track 
railway  across  the  continent  at  an  average  expenditure 
of  $50,000  a  mile. 

With  the  same  money,  we  could  annually  establish 


I48b     OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

twenty  great  universities,  at  a  cost  of  $20,000,000  each. 

Or,  with  one  year's  military  expenditures,  we  could 
establish  national  stock  ranges,  produce  our  own  beef 
cattle,  slaughter  them  and  pack  the  meat  in  government 
institutions  and  sell  meat  to  the  people  at  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction. The  beef  trust  might  not  like  this,  but  other 
people  might. 

Or,  with  one  year's  expenditures,  we  could  build  144,- 
ooo  houses  at  $3,000  each.  If  we  desired,  we  could  sell 
these  houses  at  cost,  instead  of  $4,500  or  $5,000  each, 
as  the  real  estate  gentlemen  do,  or  we  could  rent  them 
for  just  enough  to  keep  them  in  repair. 

The  government  of  New  Zealand  is  already  doing 
practically  this,  though  in  a  small  way  as  yet. 

Or,  with  one  year's  military  expenditures,  we  could 
build  50  flour  mills  at  $50,000  each,  and  sell  flour  to  the 
people  at  cost;  50  shoe  factories  at  $50,000  each,  and 
sell  shoes  to  the  people  at  cost;  100  furniture  factories 
at  $100,000  each,  and  sell  furniture  to  the  people  at 
cost  — and  still  have  spent  only  $15,000,000  of  the 
$433,000,000  that  we  are  this  year  expending  for  wars 
past  and  present. 

With  the  remaining  $418,000,000  we  might  establish 
other  industries  to  compete  with  the  grafters. 

The  foregoing  are  but  illustrations  of  what  the  work- 
ing people  of  the  world  could  do  if  .they  would  repudiate 
the  world's  war  debts,  end  war  forever,  and  then  take 
over  the  control  of  their  own  governments.  Perhaps  a 
"  widow  "  or  "  orphan,"  here  "and  there,  would  miss  the 
interest  upon  a  war  bond,  but  what  of  it?  Granted  that 
injustice  would  actually  be  done  in  some  cases,  is  it  not 
better  that  injustice  should  be  done  to  a  few  than  that 
war  should  curse  the  world  indefinitely  and  war  debts 
rob  the  world  until  the  end  of  time? 


CHAPTER  X 

HENRY    FORD'S   BOMBSHELL 

HENRY  FORD,  in  1914,  did  what  the  best  consti- 
tution could  not  have  done  —  he  cracked  the  shell 
of  hell.  He  who  will  may  put  his  eyes  to  the  crack  and 
look  out.  Everyone  in  the  world  is  putting  his  eyes  to 
the  crack,  though  not  all  of  them  are  looking  out.  The 
whole  world  is  talking  about  Ford.  Wherever  men  and 
women  toil  most,  there  is  the  talk  most  earnest. 
Five  dollars  a  day  for  floor  sweepers  —  think  of  it. 
Twelve  millions  a  year  given  to  employees  —  can  we  be 
dreaming?  And  daily  hours  cut  from  nine  to  eight — • 
will  not  somebody  kindly  wake  us  up? 

Nobody  can  wake  us  up.  We  are  not  asleep.  All 
that  we  have  read  about  Ford  is  true.  The  great  auto- 
mobile manufacturer  is  giving  away  money  by  the  mil- 
lion—  not  as  Rockefeller  gives  it,  to  universities  and 
churches;  not  as  Carnegie  gives  it,  to  found  libraries  in 
his  own  honor  —  Ford  is  giving  the  millions  back  to  the 
men  who  hammered  them  out  with  their  bones.  He 
might  have  kept  them  all.  He  voluntarily  chose  not  to. 
For  Ford,  as  a  human  being,  I  am  strong.  He  is  a  man. 

I  should  like  now  to  have  you  look  through  the  crack 
that  Ford  has  put  into  the  shell  of  hell  as  I  look  through 
it  —  and  then  ask  yourself  whether  I  have  pointed  out 
anything  that  is  not  there.  But  to  see  through  this 
crack  clearly  it  will  be  necessary  for  you  to  keep  Ford's 
millions  a  little  away  from  your  eyes.  A  silver  dollar, 

149 


150      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

held  within  half  an  inch  of  your  eye,  you  know,  will 
shut  off  the  view  of  a  valley  a  thousand  miles  long. 

I  said  I  was  strong  for  Ford.  I  am.  I  am  strong 
for  him  because  he  wears  no  bristles  upon  his  back.  I 
am  strong  for  him  because  he  is  doing  what  no  other 
man  of  his  income  ever  did  —  giving  back  to  his  em- 
ployees half  of  his  profits.  But  I  am  strongest  for  him 
because  he  has  proved  many  things  that  Socialist  writers 
have  been  telling  you  for  years.  When  we  wrote  you 
yawned.  You  said  we  were  dreamers.  Some  of  you 
said  we  were  fools.  No  matter  what  you  said.  The 
point  is,  you  did  not  believe  us.  We  pictured  to  you  a 
world  for  which  you  did  not  dare  to  hope.  You  did 
not  believe  a  world  so  much  better  than  this  could  exist. 
But  you  were  wrong.  Ford  has  proved  you  were 
wrong.  You  were  wrong  because  you  did  not  dare  to 
hope  enough.  The  human  race  never  dares  to  hope 
enough.  So  long  has  it  been  harnessed  to  hardship  that 
it  scarcely  dares  hope  at  all.  A  politician  who  promises 
next  to  nothing  —  and  does  not  deliver  that  —  is  usually 
believed.  We  Socialists,  who  promise  what  the  earth 
really  holds,  are  set  down  as  idle  dreamers  or  malicious 
demagogues. 

It  is  time  now  to  get  down  to  brass  tacks.  Money 
talks.  Ford's  money  is  talking.  We  Socialists  told  you 
that  under  a  just  system  of  industry  even  the  lowliest 
worker  need  not  lack  a  decent  living.  Ford  has  not 
established  a  just  system  of  industry,  even  in  his  own 
factory.  He  is  returning  only  half  of  his  profits.  But 
the  lowliest  man  who  works  for  Ford  receives  not  less 
than  $5  a  day/  That  is  $1,565  a  year.  Ford  is  paying 
many  of  his  workingmen  more  than  $2,000  a  year.  The 
average  annual  wage  of  the  American  workingman  is 
less  than  $500  a  year. 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  151 

The  difference  between  what  Ford  is  paying  and  what 
the  others  are  paying  indicates  part  of  the  robbery  that 
the  others  are  practising  upon  their  victims.  It  does 
not  represent  all  of  the  robbery,  because  Ford  is  not  yet 
paying  his  employees  what  they  earn.  Ford's  em- 
ployees, like  all  other  employees,  earn  all  that  is 
produced  in  excess  of  what  is  actually  produced 
by  the  proprietors  themselves.  Most  great  proprie- 
tors produce  nothing.  Ford  is  an  exception.  He  is 
entitled  to  his  just  reward.  But  his  just  reward  is  not 
what  he  is  getting.  His  plant,  in  1913,  produced  $25,- 
000,000  of  profits.  Ford  took  more  than  half  of  this 
sum  and  his  six  partners  took  the  rest.  No  man  on 
earth  can  earn  $12,000,000  or  $15,000,000  a  year. 

No  man  on  earth  can  wisely  use  so  much  a  year. 
Ford  knows  this  as  well  as  anybody.  The  fact  that  he 
has  chosen  to  surrender  half  of  his  profits  shows  that 
he  knows  it.  The  fact  that  he  has  chosen  to  return  half 
of  this  money  to  his  employees  instead  of  using  it  to 
found  libraries  and  endow  colleges  shows  that  he  knows 
to  whom  it  belongs.  Ford  has  been  a  workingman  him- 
self. He  is  not  entirely  blind.  He  knows  what  it 
means  to  work  and  get  only  a  part  of  what  one  earns. 

But  let  us  hurry  along.  We  Socialists  told  you  that 
under  a  just  system  of  industry  even  the  lowliest  work- 
ingman need  not  lack  a  decent  living.  You  hooted  at  us. 
You  said  we  were  fools.  The  rich  men  said  we  were 
crooks.  What  does  Ford  say?  He  says  he  can  afford 
to  pay  and  will  pay  floor  sweepers  not  less  than  $5  a  day. 
What  do  you  think  of  a  minimum  of  $5  a  day?  You, 
Mr.  Average  American  Workingman,  who  receive  less 
than  $500  a  year,  what  do  you  think  of  $1,565  a  year? 
Could  you  live  in  comparative  decency  on  that?  Would 
your  family  feel  a  little  more  comfortable  than  it  now 


1 52      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

feels  on  less  than  $500  a  year?  How  would  you  like 
to  work  for  Ford?  Would  you  accept  a  job  in  his  fac- 
tory if  he  were  to  telegraph  you?  Would  you  suspect 
his  money  of  being  counterfeit? 

Then,  why  do  you  always  suspect  Socialist  promises 
of  being  counterfeit?  Can  nothing  but  the  actual  sight 
of  money  convince  you?  All  that  Ford  has  told  you  in 
terms  of  money  we  have  told  you  in  words.  We  have 
told  you  even  more.  We  have  told  you  that  you  may 
have  all  your  labor  produces  if  you  will  but  go  about  it 
in  a  sensible  way  to  get  it.  Ford  has  told  his  employees 
they  may  have  half  of  the  additional  $25,000,000  a  year 
that  they  should  get.  When  Ford  promises  to  return 
ten  or  twelve  millions  a  year  you  take  him  exceedingly 
seriously.  If  you  are  near  enough  to  his  factory,  you 
crowd  around  the  gates  and  howl  for  jobs.  You  block 
the  streets  until  the  police  have  to  come  and  chase  you 
away.  But  when  Socialists  tell  you  that  you  could  just 
as  well  have  the  whole  $25,000,000  as  half  of  it,  you 
yawn  and  declare  you  believe  you  will  vote  the  Demo- 
cratic ticket  and  keep  the  tariff  down  or  vote  some  other 
ticket  and  put  the  tariff  up. 

The  man  who  perpetually  yawns  is  exceedingly  likely 
to  dislocate  his  jaw,  but  he  is  not  in  great  danger  of 
yawning  a  new  suit  of  clothes  upon  his  back,  or  a  bar- 
rel of  flour  into  the  kitchen.  It  is  time  that  we,  as  a  na- 
tion of  working  men  and  women,  began  to  give  some 
serious  thought  to  the  problem  of  how  we  may  best  go 
about  it  to  make  life  more  nearly  worth  living.  If  noth- 
ing can  convince  us  except  the  actual  sight  of  money,  let 
us  thank  God  that  Ford  has  money.  He  has  put  a  crack 
in  the  walls  that  even  a  donkey  should  be  able  to  see 
through. 

But  we  should  ask  too  much  of  Mr.  Ford  if  we  were 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  153 

to  require  him  to  pull  us  through  the  crack.  Ford  has 
done  enough  for  us.  We  should  now  do  something  for 
ourselves.  He  has  shown  us  that  half  of  his  profits 
are  enough  to  enable  him  to  reduce  daily  hours  from 
nine  to  eight  and  increase  the  pay  of  all  men  more  than 
22  years  old  to  $5  a  day.  We  should  be  able  to  do  the 
rest  of  the  problem  ourselves.  It  is  nothing  but  a  prob- 
lem in  mental  arithmetic.  We  have  only  to  divide  the 
remainder  of  Ford's  annual  profits  by  the  number  of  his 
employees  to  ascertain  how  much  more  Socialism  would 
increase  wages. 

The  remainder  of  Ford's  profits  are  $12,500,000. 

The  number  of  his  employees  is  25,000. 

Enough  profits  are  left  to  increase  by  $500  a  year 
the  wages  of  each  man,  woman  and  child  who  works 
for  Ford. 

That  would  be  a  little  more  than  $2,000  a  year  for 
floor  sweepers  and  still  more  for  others. 

If  Ford  should  say  to  his  employees  that  he  would 
give  each  of  them  $500  more  a  year,  you  would  believe 
him.  You  would  believe  him  because  you  know  he  has 
the  money.  Yet  Ford  cannot  divide  $12,500,000  by 
25,000  more  accurately  than  I  can.  I  know  what  the 
result  is  as  well  as  he  does.  I  know  that  if  Ford's  em- 
ployees, in  common  with  all  the  rest  of  the  people  in  the 
United  States,  owned  the  Ford  factory,  precisely  as  they 
do  the  parcel  post,  that  the  employees,  instead  of  Mr. 
Ford  and  his  partners,  would  get  the  remaining  $12,- 
500,000  a  year.  All  this  is  but  the  simplest  truth,  and 
the  sooner  the  working  class  of  the  United  States 
awaken  to  its  truth  the  sooner  will  "  Ford  wages  " —  and 
better  —  be  paid  to  everybody  in  the  United  States. 

But  every  industry  in  the  United  States  is  not  a  Ford 
automobile  factory  —  this  from  our  friends  the  grafters 


154      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

who  want  to  keep  things  precisely  as  they  are.  Hardly 
anybody,  they  say,  is  making  so  much  money  as  Ford 
and  almost  nobody  could  afford  to  pay  so  much  wages 
as  he  is  paying. 

Nonsense?  Every  great  industry  in  the  United 
States  can  afford  to  pay  as  much  as  Ford  is  paying. 
Little  business  men  could  not  afford  to  pay  as  much,  be- 
cause they  are  doing  business  in  a  wasteful,  picayuneish 
way,  but  the  great  industries  are  as  well  able  as  Ford  to 
pay  what  he  is  paying.  The  automobile  industry  is 
highly  competitive.  Ford's  business  seems  an  exception 
to  ordinary  industries  only  because  his  dividends  are  so 
large.  Let  me  tell  you  why  his  dividends  are  so  large. 

The  Ford  Automobile  Company  in  1913  made  profits 
of  $25,000,000.  The  rule  among  big  business  men  is 
to  issue  as  much  stock  as  the  profits  will  pay  dividends 
upon.  That  is  the  way  business  men  estimate  values. 
Earning  power  is  the  test.  If  a  concern  can  produce 
profits  of  $1,000  a  year,  the  concern  must  be  worth  $25,- 
ooo,  because  $1,000  is  4  per  cent,  of  $25,000.  The  ad- 
vantage of  this  scheme  is  that  it  gives  the  insiders  an 
opportunity  to  get  their  own  profits  quickly.  They  do 
not  wait  weary  years  for  dividends.  They  simply  start 
the  presses  to  printing  stock.  The  stock  is  sold  to  the 
public  at  high  prices  and  bought  back,  in  panic  times,  at 
low  prices.  The  insider  cannot  lose.  The  outsider  can- 
not win.  The  insider  does  not  intend  the  outsider  shall 
win. 

The  Ford  Automobile  Company,-  as  I  have  said,  pro- 
duced in  1913  profits  of  $25,000,000.  It  was  known  far 
and  wide  as  a  highly  prosperous  concern.  According  to 
all  the  rules  of  high  finance,  it  should  have  been  capi- 
talized at  an  enormous  sum.  According  to  all  the  rules 
of  high  finance,  its  stock  should  have  been  touted  broad- 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  155 

cast  as  a  great  investment  and  sold  to  everybody  who 
could  be  induced  to  buy.  If  Henry  Ford  had  been  the 
ordinary  big  business  man,  he  would  have  done  these 
things.  Upon  the  basis  of  his  $25,000,000  of  profits 
he  would  have  capitalized  his  concern  at  $625,000,000  or 
thereabouts.  Upon  a  capitalization  of  $625,000,000  he 
could  have  paid  an  annual  dividend  of  4  per  cent.  As 
the  owner  of  more  than  half  of  the  stock  he  could  have 
put  more  than  $300,000,000  into  his  own  pockets  and 
become  another  Carnegie.  He'  could  have  reduced 
wages,  starved  his  employees  into  strikes,  shot  them 
down  if  necessary,  and  virtuously  resisted  all  demands 
for  more  wages  by  declaring  that  he  was  already  paying 
so  much  wages  that  he  could  pay  only  4  per  cent,  interest 
upon  his  stock. 

But  Henry  Ford  did  none  of  these  things.  The  Ford 
Automobile  Company,  instead  of  being  capitalized  at 
$625,000,000,  is  capitalized  at  $2,000,000.  The  stock 
of  the  company,  instead  of  being  scattered  broadcast 
through  the  country,  is  owned  by  seven  men,  Mr.  Ford 
himself  owning  more  than  half.  Mr.  Ford,  in  other 
words,  has  been  and  is  engaged  in  the  making  and  sell- 
ing of  automobiles  rather  than  in  the  making  and  sell- 
ing of  stock. 

Therein  Ford  differs  from  the  conventional  big  busi- 
ness man.  Because  his  company  is  honestly  capitalized, 
his  books  in  1913  showed  a  profit  of  more  than  1,200 
per  cent.  It  is  because  his  books  showed  a  profit  of 
more  than  1,200  per  cent,  that  the  Ford  company  is 
pointed  out  as  an  unusually  successful  enterprise.  If 
the  Ford  company  were  capitalized  for  seven  or  eight 
hundred  million  dollars,  the  very  men  who  now  regard 
it  as  a  gold  mine  would  regard  it  as  a  gold  brick. 

And  it  would  be  a  gold  brick  to  everybody  except  the 


I56      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

men  who  sold  the  brick.  They  would  have  the  seven 
or  eight  hundred  millions  and  would  be  so  respectable 
that  their  respectability  would  shed  censure  as  a  duck's 
feathers  shed  rain.  But  the  cheated  stockholders  would 
be  dissatisfied  with  the  small  return  upon  their  invest- 
ment, and  the  workers  would  be  dissatisfied  with  their 
wages.  The  wages  of  floor  sweepers  would  not  be  in- 
creased from  $2.34  a  day  to  $5,  nor  would  $12,000,000 
be  handed  out  each  year  to  other  employees.  More 
likely  the  wages  of  everybody  would  be  reduced.  And 
the  reduction  would  be  based  upon  the  excuse  that  is 
everywhere  given  by  big  business  men :  "  We  must  re- 
duce wages  in  order  to  pay  our  stockholders  a  fair  rate 
of  interest." 

We  hear  this  cry  every  day.  The  railroad  companies 
want  to  reduce  wages  or  increase  freight  rates  —  they 
do  not  much  care  which.  The  mining  companies  can- 
not afford  to  pay  their  employees  living  wages.  No  mil- 
lionaire will  admit  that  he  is  making  a  dollar  in  excess 
of  necessary  household  expenses.  Ford  is  the  only  mil- 
lionaire in  the  United  States  who  is  crying  to  his  em- 
ployees to  help  him  spend  his  money. 

Yet  common  sense  should  tell  us  that  the  Ford  plant 
is  not  the  only  industry  in  the  United  States  that  is  mak- 
ing much  money.  Why  should  the  Ford  plant  be  so 
considered?  The  Ford  plant  makes  nothing  but  auto- 
mobiles. Automobiles  are  not  necessary  to  life.  Most 
people  do  not  have  them.  Most  people  never  will  have 
them.  Concerns  that  make  and  sell  what  everybody 
must  have  should  be  much  more  prosperous  than  a  con- 
cern that  deals  in  what  only  a  few  can  have.  A  great 
railroad  system  should  be  much  more  prosperous  than 
an  automobile  plant.  The  Beef  Trust  should  be  more 
prosperous  than  an  automobile  plant  The  Woolen 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  157 

Trust  should  be  more  prosperous  than  an  automobile 
plant.  The  Steel  Trust  should  be  more  prosperous  than 
an  automobile  plant.  Yet  not  one  of  these  trusts  de- 
clared a  dividend  in  1913  of  1,200  per  cent.  Not  one 
of  these  trusts  has  since  established  a  minimum  wage  of 
$5  a  day  and  reduced  daily  hours  from  nine  to  eight. 
Not  one  of  these  trusts  pays  anything  but  the  lowest 
wages  upon  which  its  employees  will  consent  to  exist. 
They  are  all  doing  business  —  feeding,  transporting  and 
otherwise  serving  the  American  people,  but  they  are  all 
paying  wages  that  Ford's  employees  would  not  look  at, 
and  calling  upon  the  police,  if  necessary,  to  prevent  their 
employees  from  using  force  to  get  more. 

The  American  people  are  being  fooled  —  that's  all. 
The  business  buccaneers  of  this  country  are  concealing 
their  profits  behind  watered  stock.  What  Ford  is  doing 
all  the  great  business  interests  of  the  United  States  could 
do  if  they  would. 

The  railroads  could  decrease  freight  and  passenger 
rates  and  increase  wages. 

The  Beef  Trust  could  increase  wages  and  reduce  the 
price  of  meat. 

The  Woolen  Trust  and  the  Steel  Trust  could  sell 
their  products  for  less  and  pay  their  employees  more. 

Ford  wages  can  be  duplicated  by  any  trust  that  is  will- 
ing to  retire  its  watered  stock  and  return  to  its  employees 
half  or  more  of  the  profits. 

But  there  comes  the  rub.  To  get  the  desired  result 
both  of  the  foregoing  conditions  must  be  brought  about. 
Capitalization  must  be  brought  down  to  an  honest  basis 
and  capitalists  must  be  found  who  will  give  half  of  their 
profits  back  to  their  employees.  The  fulfillment  of 
either  of  the  conditions  without  the  other  will  not  be 
enough.  It  is  theoretically  possible,  though  highly  im- 


i58      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

probable,  that  the  trusts  will  be  forced  to  an  honest  capi- 
talization. But  what  if  the  trusts  were  to  be  forced  to 
an  honest  capitalization  to-morrow?  What  good  would 
that  do  the  men  and  women  who  work  for  the  trusts? 

That  is  a  question  that  is  not  answered  by  gentlemen 
who  would  settle  everything  by  squeezing  the  water  out 
of  stock.  Squeezing  water  out  of  stock,  while  a  highly 
meritorious  proceeding,  does  not  necessarily  amount  to 
anything  to  the  employees  of  stockholders.  Squeez- 
ing the  water  out  of  stock  merely  prevents  rich  men 
from  gold-bricking  small  investors.  It  does  not  com- 
pel stockholders  to  pay  wageworkers  more  wages. 
Ford's  honest  capitalization  did  not  amount  to  anything 
to  his  employees  until  he  coupled  with  it  a  determination 
to  return  to  his  employees  half  of  his  enormous  profits. 
Without  undermining  the  very  foundations  of  the  capi- 
talist system,  what  law  can  be  passed  to  compel  capital- 
ists to  return  half  or  more  of  their  profits  to  their  em- 
ployees? No  such  law  can  be  passed.  Therefore,  the 
squeezing  out  of  water  from  stock  is  no  remedy  for  in- 
sufficient wages.  It  is  a  remedy  only  for  a  certain  class 
of  bad  investments. 

The  only  remedy  for  the  miserable  conditions  under 
which  labor  exists  is  Socialism.  Ford's  plan,  splendid 
as  it  is  in  comparison  with  the  policies  of  other  capital- 
ists, is  defective  in  many  particulars,  of  which  I  shall 
mention  two.  It  gives  his  employees  only  half  of  the 
$25,000,000  annual  profits,  when  they  should  have  all 
of  the  profits  except  what  might  justly  be  paid  to  him 
as  compensation  for  his  services,  which  are  of  undoubted 
value;  and,  being  entirely  voluntary,  it  may  be  with- 
drawn by  him  at  any  moment. 

No  man  should  have  the  right  to  withdraw  at  any 
time  anything  to  which  any  other  man  is  entitled. 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  159 

Either  Ford's  employees  create  the  wealth  that  is  pro- 
duced in  his  plant  or  they  do  not.  If  they  do  not  create 
this  wealth,  it  would  be  interesting  to  discover  who  does 
create  it.  If  they  do  create  it  they  are  entitled  to  all 
they  create  all  the  time.  If  they  did  not  create  the 
$25,000,000  of  profits  that  the  plant  produced  in  1913, 
then  Ford  and  his  six  partners  did  create  it  and  are  now 
doling  it  back  to  their  employees  in  the  form  of  charity. 
If  the  workers  of  this  country,  in  demanding  higher 
wages,  are  seeking  charity,  I  have  not  heard  their  cry 
aright.  If  Ford,  in  announcing  his  profit-sharing  plan, 
branded  it  as  an  act  of  charity,  I  did  not  read  his  an- 
nouncement aright. 

"All  our  men,"  said  Henry  Ford  to  the  New  York 
Times,  on  January  n,  1914,  "have  helped  us  in  our 
business.  We  feel  they  are  entitled  to  share  in  the 
profits." 

Not  a  word  about  charity  in  that.     Nor  in  this : 

"  I  do  not  believe  in  prolonging  the  conditions  which, 
ever  since  the  Civil  War,  have  been  developing  into  a 
curse  upon  the  country  —  the  conditions  which  have 
built  up  a  few  millionaires  and  actually  pauperized  mil- 
lions or  kept  them  poor.  Such  conditions  are  out  of 
date." 

Such  conditions  certainly  are  out  of  date.  Such  con- 
ditions were  never  in  date.  They  were  never  just. 
They  are  not  just  now.  But  to  declare  them  "  out  of 
date  "  accomplishes  nothing.  Even  if  they  are  out  of 
date,  the  conditions  still  exist.  What  we  need  is  to  put 
them  out  of  existence.  How  can  we  do  that?  Ford's 
plan  will  not  do  it.  Ford's  plan  is  voluntary.  If  we 
wait  until  the  great  capitalists  of  this  country  voluntarily 
offer  to  relinquish  half  of  their  profits  to  their  employees, 
we  shall  probably  wait  until  Gabriel  blows  his  horn. 


160      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

Who  is  willing  to  wait  so  long?  If  every  capitalist 
should  voluntarily  follow  Ford's  example  to-morrow, 
what  could  prevent  them  from  changing  their  minds  day 
after  to-morrow? 

Don't  let  your  mind  buckle  up  at  this  point.  Here  is 
where  you  should  do  your  thinking.  It  is  because  you 
always  stop  before  you  get  to  this  point  that  you  never 
get  anywhere.  We  have  uncovered  the  loot  —  how  are 
we  to  recover  our  property? 

We  have  shown  that  stock  watering  is  a  device  by 
which  profits  are  concealed  —  how  are  we  to  get  what 
we  have  lost? 

You  cannot  do  it  by  decreasing  the  tariff. 

You  cannot  do  it  by  increasing  the  tariff. 

You  cannot  do  it  by  fussing  with  the  currency. 

You  cannot  do  it  by  passing  more  foolish  laws  against 
the  trusts. 

Only  one  law  can  be  enacted  against  the  trusts  that 
will  do  the  people  any  good.  Pass  a  law  compelling 
the  trusts  to  sell  their  plants  to  the  government,  at  a 
just  price,  and  you  will  have  done  something.  You  will 
then  be  in  a  position  to  know  that  you  will  get  the  profits 
made  by  the  trusts.  Owners  never  have  any  difficulty  in 
collecting  the  profits  that  their  industries  make.  Out- 
siders are  the  only  ones  who  have  difficulty  in  collecting 
profits  on  other  people's  property. 

The  American  people  are  outsiders.  They  should  be 
insiders.  The  people  of  the  United  States  should  own 
the  industries  of  the  United  States.  They  do  all  the 
work  in  these  industries.  They  have  need  for  all  the 
products  of  these  industries.  Why  should  they  let  a 
few  insiders  own  everything  while  all  the  rest  of  the 
people  stand  outside  and  pay  everything?  It  is  not  be- 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  161 

cause  industry  would  cease  if  the  insiders  ceased  to  own. 
Owners  are  not  workers.  They  used  to  be,  a  hundred 
years  ago,  but  they  are  not  now.  Business  has  grown 
too  big.  Owners  now  merely  own.  Morgan  makes  no 
steel,  nor  helps  move  a  railway  train.  Rockefeller  only 
plays  golf.  Not  a  great  captain  of  industry  works  any- 
thing but  the  public.  With  rare  exceptions,  such  ener- 
gies as  they  devote  to  business  are  devoted  only  to  the 
business  of  profit-making. 

Profit-making  does  the  public  no  good.  If  the  pub- 
lic must  be  buncoed  out  of  a  profit,  the  public  has  no  in- 
terest in  the  destination  of  the  profit.  It  is  immaterial 
to  the  public  whether  the  profit  goes  to  Morgan,  to 
Rockefeller  or  to  the  Vanderbilts.  The  public  should 
not,  therefore,  be  compelled  to  pay  Mr.  Morgan  for  so 
arranging  matters  that  a  certain  profit  goes  to  him  rather 
than  to  somebody  else.  That  kind  of  "  work "  does 
not  constitute  public  service  and  should  not  be  paid  for 
by  the  public. 

Yet  it  is  the  only  kind  of  work  these  gentlemen  do. 
To  do  this  "work"  is  the  only  excuse  they  have  for 
owning  the  country's  industries.  If  they  were  to  get 
out,  the  industries  would  go  on.  The  men  who  are 
making  steel  would  continue  to  make  steel.  The  men 
who  are  digging  coal  would  continue  to  dig  coal.  The 
men  who  are  weaving  wool  would  continue  to  weave 
wool.  Nothing  would  happen  except  that  a  few 
grafters  would  no  longer  be  permitted  to  fatten  at  the 
expense  of  everybody  else.  What  Ford  has  done  for 
his  25,000  employees  would  be  more  than  duplicated  for 
every  other  working  man  and  woman  in  the  United 
States.  Ford  is  giving  only  half  of  his  profits  back  to 
the  men  who  originally  created  them.  Socialism  would 


162      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

hand  over  the  other  half.  Socialism  would  leave  noth- 
ing for  the  mere  owner  —  for  the  man  who  did  nothing 
but  stand  at  the  pay  window  with  a  club. 

Men  like  Henry  Ford  would  be  taken  care  of.  Men 
like  Henry  Ford  are  as  easy  to  take  care  of  as  they  are 
scarce.  In  the  New  York  Times  interview  that  I  have 
quoted  he  said:  "I  don't  expect  to  leave  much  of  a 
fortune  when  I  die."  He  knows  how  little  money  can 
do  toward  the  making  of  happiness.  Yet  he  knows  how 
necessary  it  is  that  everybody  should  be  able  to  receive 
for  his  labor  enough  money  to  enable  him  to  live  com- 
fortably. "  I  believe  it  is  better  for  the  nation,"  he  said 
to  the  Times,  "  and  far  better  for  humanity,  that  be- 
tween 20,000  and  30,000  men  and  women  who  work  for 
me  should  be  contented  and  well  fed  than  that  a  few. 
millionaires  should  be  made." 

The  needs  of  all  the  rest  of  the  people  are  as  great 
as  the  needs  of  Ford's  employees.  He  believes  —  and 
quite  rightly  — that  he  has  helped  humanity  by  giving 
half  of  his  profits  to  his  employees.  I  believe  humanity 
would  be  helped  tremendously  more  by  giving  all  of  the 
profits  that  now  go  to  capitalists  to  the  working  men 
and  women  who  are  creating  them.  That  is  what 
Socialism  stands  for. 

And  that  is  what  we  need  in  this  country.  We  need 
to  widen  the  margin  between  income  and  necessary  ex- 
penditure. It  does  no  good  to  increase  wages  if  the 
cost  of  living  be  also  increased  so  much  that  nothing  is 
left  of  the  increased  wages.  Nor  does  it  do  any  good 
to  reduce  the  cost  of  living  if  wages  be  so  reduced  that 
the  worker  can  pay  only  for  the  cheaper  living.  The 
people  of  this  country  will  never  be  any  better  off  until 
the  cost  of  living  can  be  tremendously  reduced  without 
reducing  wages  at  all,  or  until  wages  can  be  tremen- 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  163 

dously  increased  without  increasing  the  cost  of  living  at 
all.  Which  brings  us  to  the  paltry  promises  that  the 
other  political  parties  make  —  and  don't  keep. 

How  miserable  are  the  promises  of  the  Democratic 
party  —  empty  though  they  have  proved  to  be  —  beside 
what  Henry  Ford  is  actually  doing.  The  Democratic 
party  promised  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living  by  reducing 
the  tariff.  If  anyone  can  show  that  the  cost  of  living 
has  gone  down  since  the  Underwood  tariff  law  became 
effective  he  will  have  accomplished  something  that 
Bradstreet's  has  been  unable  to  do.  The  Democratic 
party  promised  that  it  would  increase  prosperity  by  "  re- 
forming "  the  currency.  The  winter  after  the  currency 
was  reformed  325,000  men  were  idle  in  New  York  City 
alone,  and  millions  more  were  idle  throughout  the  coun- 
try. The  Democratic  party  promised  to  stop  extortion 
by  "  strengthening "  the  laws  against  the  trusts,  but 
when  Mr.  Wilson  outlined  his  anti-trust  program  to 
congress  Wall  street  smiled  and  declared  publicly  that 
the  President's  statesmanship  was  superb. 

Nor  is  that  all.  What  if  the  Democratic  party  had 
actually  kept  its  promise  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living? 
WThat  if  the  Democratic  party  had  made  the  average 
man's  living  cost  nothing?  The  average  man's  living 
must  cost  less  than  $500  a  year,  because  his  total  income 
is  less  than  that  sum.  What  if  the  Democratic  party 
had  enabled  the  average  man  to  live  for  nothing  and 
save  his  whole  income  of  less  than  $500  a  year?  What 
would  that  achievement  have  amounted  to  beside  the  act 
of  Ford  in  paying  even  his  floor  sweepers  $1,565  a  year? 
If  Ford's  floor  sweepers  want  to  live  on  less  than  $500 
a  year,  as  most  American  workingmen  are  compelled  to 
live,  each  of  Ford's  floor  sweepers  can  save  more  than 
$1,000  a  year.  Ford  actually  increased  the  wages  of 


1 64      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

each  of  his  floor  sweepers  $833  a  year.  He  more  than 
doubled  their  wages,  swelling  them  from  $732  to  $1,565. 
The  Democratic  party  never  promised  the  working  peo- 
ple of  the  country  more  than  a  paltry  reduction  in  the 
cost  of  living,  with  no  guarantee  whatever  that  wages 
would  not  be  correspondingly  reduced.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  Democratic  party  has  not  reduced  the  cost  of 
living  at  all.  Yet  Mr.  Wilson  continues  to  enjoy  world- 
wide renown  as  a  great  statesman. 

Nor  did  Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  his  most  extravagant  mo- 
ments, ever  promise  anything  that  could  be  compared 
with  what  Henry  Ford  has  done  and  is  doing.  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  if  he  be  read  carefully,  never  really  promised 
much  of  anything.  He  talked  glibly  about  "  social  jus- 
tice/' but  he  never  took  the  trouble  to  translate  his 
phrases  into  terms  of  beef  and  potatoes.  Any  political 
phrase  that  cannot  be  translated  into  terms  of  beef  and 
potatoes  is  poor  politics  for  those  who  consume  the 
political  phrase  but  cannot  consume  the  beef  and  po- 
tatoes. 

What  we  need  in  this  country  is  more  food,  more 
clothing,  better  shelter,  more  leisure  and  less  political 
hot  air.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  willing,  as  he  always  is,  to 
promise  at  least  all  he  believes  he  can  deliver,  really 
never  promised  anything  that  was  definite  enough  to 
be  identified  by  an  adding  machine.  If  he  had  prom- 
ised to  the  people  of  the  whole  country  even  half  of 
what  Ford  is  actually  delivering  to  his  employees,  it  is 
a  grave  question  whether  he  would  have  received  as 
many  votes  as  he  did.  It  would  have  seemed  too  much. 
Nobody  would  have  believed  the  country's  industries 
could  stand  the  drain.  Yet  Ford,  honestly  capitalized  as 
his  company  is,  has  turned  the  trick  and  is  still  paying 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  165 

an  annual  dividend  of  600  per  cent,  upon  his  $2,000,000 
of  stock. 

We  who  live  in  this  country  should  dare  to  hope. 
We  are  living  in  both  a  marvelous  country  and  a  mar- 
velous age.  We  have  the  men,  the  machinery  and  the 
materials  with  which  to  produce  everything  we  need. 
We  should  no  longer  be  content  with  a  bare  living.  We 
should  live  well  and  live  easily.  We  should  work  less 
and  consume  more.  We  should  demand  much  and  in- 
sist upon  getting  it.  We  should  have  no  patience  with 
politicians  who  promise  us  trifles  and  give  us  nothing. 
Any  politician  who  promises  us  trifles  is  either  crooked 
or  lacking  in  realization  of  what  are  our  just  deserts. 
We  who  do  the  work  of  this  country  are  entitled  to 
everything  that  is  produced  in  this  country.  We  should 
have  no  multi-millionaires  here.  We  should  have  no 
paupers  here.  We  should  have  neither  if  everyone  were 
to  have  the  value  of  what  he  creates  and  no  more. 

We  need  only  to  go  about  it  sanely  to  satisfy  our 
needs.  The  industries  of  this  country  are  no  longer 
suited  to  private  ownership.  Anything  that  cannot  be 
run  by  its  owners  is  too  large  for  its  owners  to  own. 
Lincoln  said  no  man  was  good  enough  to  govern  an- 
other man  without  that  other  man's  consent.  We  say 
that  no  man  has  a  moral  right  to  own  what  he  cannot 
operate,  but  which  other  men  must  operate  if  they  are 
to  live.  The  small  group  of  men  who  own  the  indus- 
tries of  this  country  cannot  operate  them  and  do  not 
need  them.  The  great  group  of  men  who  operate  the 
industries  of  this  country  do  not  own  them,  but  must 
have  access  to  them  if  they  are  to  live.  They  cannot 
obtain  access  to  them  except  by  making  terms  with  their 
owners.  The  terms  are  always  the  lowest  wages  upon 


1 66      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

which  the  workers  will  consent  to  exist.  These  must  be 
the  terms  because  there  are  always  idle  workers  ready 
to  take  the  jobs  for  wages  that  will  yield  a  bare  living. 
•  Democrats  declare  these  statements  are  false.  Pro- 
gressives declare  these  statements  are  false.  Republi- 
cans declare  these  statements  are  false.  We  Socialists 
respectfully  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  capitalists 
who  are  robbing  you  are  financing  each  of  the  parties 
that  declare  we  Socialists  are  liars.  We  also  call  your 
attention  to  the  conditions  that  now  exist  and  have  ex- 
isted since  you  were  born  —  and  long  before.  The 
workingmen  of  this  country,  like  workingmen  the  world 
over,  have  been  and  still  are  poor. 

If  you  want  to  fill  your  pockets,  you  must  open  your 
eyes.  Two  classes  are  struggling  for  the  possession  of 
the  wealth  that  is  being  produced  in  this  country.  The 
workers  are  trying  to  keep  what  they  make.  The  capi- 
talists are  trying  to  get  all  they  can.  Strikes  are  an  ex- 
pression of  this  conflict.  Politics  is  an  expression  of 
this  conflict.  Of  the  two  politics  is  the  more  important. 
The  gentlemen  who  are  relieving  you  of  so  large  a  pro- 
portion of  what  you  produce  are  proceeding  according  to 
law.  They  know,  because  they  made  the  law.  They 
are  exceedingly  particular  as  to  what  the  law  shall  be. 
They  would  like  the  law  always  to  be  on  their  side.  It 
is  easier  to  do  anything  when  the  law  is  on  one's  side. 
You  should  know  this  as  well  as  they  do.  You  should 
know  it  so  well  that  you  would  go  about  it  intelligently 
to  make  the  law  as  you  want  it. 

That  is  precisely  what  you  do  not  do.  When  you 
strike  you  do  not  choose  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  or  John 
D.  Rockefeller  as  your  leader.  You  choose  one  of  your 
own  men.  But  when  you  go  after  something  of  much 
more  importance  —  that  is  to  say,  political  power  —  you 


HENRY  FORD'S  BOMBSHELL  167 

always  choose  J.  Pierpont  Morgan  or  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller as  your  leader.  I  mean  you  always  vote  with 
some  party  that  is  controlled  and  financed  by  the  rich 
men  whom  you  wish  to  conquer. 

You  see  Roosevelt,  but  you  do  not  see  George 
W.  Perkins. 

You  see  Wilson,  but  you  do  not  see  August  Belmont 
and  Thomas  F.  Ryan. 

You  are  solemnly  assured  that  Perkins,  Belmont  and 
Ryan  do  not  count,  but  when  your  hero  has  finished  his 
term  in  the  White  House  they  are  always  more  enthusi- 
astic about  him  than  you  are.  You  may  not  know  why, 
but  they  do.  You  believed  he  belonged  to  your  side. 
They  knew  he  did  not.  Some  of  the  men  who  recently 
built  a  monument  in  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  to  the 
memory  of  Grover  Cleveland  are  the  men  whom  Cleve- 
land was  elected  to  put  out  of  business.  It  is  always 
so.  A  man  who  is  elected  by  the  capitalist  class  cannot 
be  depended  upon  to  prevent  that  class  from  preying 
upon  the  people. 

The  Socialist  party  is  trying  to  take  possession  of 
this  country  on  behalf  of  the  men  and  women  who  are 
doing  the  work  of  this  country.  It  is  not  financed  by 
any  capitalist.  Its  only  source  of  income  is  the  25  cents 
a  month  that  each  of  the  workers  who  belong  to  the 
party  pays  into  its  treasury.  It  has  no  other  purpose 
than  to  promote  the  public  welfare.  It  knows  not  how 
the  public  welfare  can  be  promoted  except  by  urging  the 
people  to  take  over  the  ownership  of  the  country's  indus- 
tries and  operate  them  for  the  public  benefit.  We  be- 
lieve we  can  pack  meat  without  Mr.  Armour.  We  be- 
lieve we  can  do  everything  there  is  to  be  done  without 
the  help  of  anybody.  We  know  we  can  do  everything 
that  is  to  be  done,  because  we  have  always  done  it  and 


1 68       OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

are  still  doing  it.  We  should  only  miss  the  activities  of 
the  gentlemen  who  keep  us  poor  while  we  are  working, 
We  believe  we  could  endure  their  absence.  We  also  be- 
lieve we  could  endure  the  absence  of  their  agents  in  con- 
gress. We  believe  congress,  without  any  trust  agents  in 
it,  would  be  quite  a  respectable  body.  We  should  not 
trust  it  too  far  —  we  should  hold  it  in  check  with  the 
initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall  —  but  we  be- 
lieve it  would  do  very  well.  Since  the  government  has 
succeeded  in  digging  the  Panama  Canal,  we  believe  it 
could  be  trusted  to  dig  coal  and  grind  wheat,  weave  cloth 
and  smoke  hams. 

In  short,  we  believe  so  much  in  our  country  that  we 
are  exceedingly  anxious  to  take  possession  of  it.  We 
should  like  to  place  everybody,  not  merely  on  a  level  with 
Mr.  Ford's  floor  sweepers,  but  up  with  his  $3,000  or 
$4,000  year  mechanics.  At  present  each  of  Mr.  Ford's 
floor  sweepers  is  annually  in  receipt  of  an  income  that 
is  more  than  three  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  average 
American  —  and  Mr.  Ford  has  enough  left  to  pay  a 
dividend  of  600  per  cent,  upon  his  stock.  Mr.  Ford 
and  his  floor  sweepers  may  be  proud  of  this  fact,  but 
how  do  you  feel  about  it? 

Join  the  Socialist  Party.  Vote  the  Socialist  trcket. 
Get  in  line.  It  is  unthinkable  that  present  conditions 
can  forever  continue.  The  ownership  of  the  earth  can- 
not forever  be  kept  in  the  hands  of  a  few.  The  workers 
must  be  the  owners.  Do  you  believe  otherwise?  If 
not,  vote  the  only  ticket  that  will  express  your  desires. 
Dare  to  hope  —  and  then  vote  as  you  hope. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOCIALISM 

QOCIALISM  has  been  variously  defined  as  a  disease, 
^  a  crime,  and  a  sport,  while  the  simple  truth  is  that 
it  is  nothing  but  a  program  combined  with  a  passion. 
The  program  of  Socialism  is  as  prosaic  as  that  of  a  dog 
that  has  fleas.  We  merely  propose  to  shake  off  the  gen- 
tlemen who  are  .riding  upon  our  backs  and  relieving  us 
of  our  tissue.  We  passionately  present  our  program 
because  it  is  a  program  to  bring  about  social  justice. 
We  do  not  apologize  for  becoming  somewhat  in  earnest 
in  our  efforts  to  rid  the  world  of  social  injustice. 

Perhaps  the  master  fallacy  of  the  American  people 
is  that  this  country  contains  no  classes  —  that  we  are 
all  little  brothers  working  together  to  fulfil  some  sort 
of  glorious  mission,  and  that  "the  interests  of  capital 
and  labor  are  identical."  If  anybody  can  demonstrate 
to  us  that  the  interests  of  burglars  and  householders  are 
identical,  we  Socialists  shall  be  willing  to  concede  that 
the  interests  of  capital  and  labor  are  identical.  In  the 
sense  that  burglars  and  capitalists  are  both  engaged  in 
the  pleasant  occupation  of  appropriating  wealth  created 
by  others,  capitalists  and  burglars  are  alike.  They  are 
unlike  chiefly  in  the  particulars  that  burglars  always 
work  outside  of  the  law  and  do  not  have  the  effrontery 
to  contend  that  the  interests  of  themselves  and  their 
victims  are  as  nearly  alike  as  two  peas. 


i;o       OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

Yet  this  is  no  new  event  in  the  world's  history.  Since 
man  first  learned  to  convert  his  labor-power  into  wealth, 
there  has  always  been  a  struggle  for  its  possession. 
This  struggle,  from  age  to  age,  has  taken  various  forms. 

Precisely  as  rapidly  as  the  oppressed  have  compelled 
their  oppressors  to  abandon  one  form  of  pillaging  they 
have  adopted  another.  In  the  beginning,  the  method 
was  plain  highway  robbery.  Then  came  the  pretense  to 
actual  ownership  of  men's  bodies  which  was  followed  by 
serfdom.  Afterwards  came  capitalism,  under  which  a 
small  class  of  men  own  the  natural  resources  and  in- 
dustrial machinery  of  the  world  and  give  those  who  do 
the  work  only  enough  to  enable  them  to  come  back  in 
the  morning  for  more  work. 

In  fact,  this  dodging  from  pillar  to  post  has  gone  on 
so  successfully  and  at  such  great  length  that  we  Social- 
ists should  have  no  interest  in  trying  to  interfere  with  it 
were  it  not  that  we  remember  the  old  story  about  the 
coon  that  ran  from  one  hole  to  another  as  rapidly  as  it 
was  smoked  out.  The  coon  finally  came  to  the  last  hole, 
and  was  caught.  We  Socialists  believe  we  can  demon- 
strate that  the  capitalists  have  come,  to  their  last  hole. 

Seventy  years  ago,  Socialist  thinkers  and  writers  pre- 
dicted the  coming  of  trusts  and  accurately  described 
them  as  they  exist  to-day.  Nobody  paid  any  attention 
to  these  gentlemen.  There  was  not  a  trust  in  the  world. 
Not  until  more  than  thirty  years  later  was  there  a  trust 
in  the  world.  But  these  Socialist  gentlemen  were  un- 
easy. They  believed  they  could  see  something.  The 
steam  engine  had  been  invented.  For  the  first  time  in 
the  world's  history,  man  was  beginning  to  harness  the 
forces  of  nature  for  the  production  of  wealth. 

The  Socialist  gentlemen  figured  it  out  this  way:  man- 
ufacturing will  prove  to  be  a  profitable  industry.  The 


SOCIALISM  171 

profits  of  the  industry  will  attract  capital  to  it.  For  a 
time  the  volume  of  production  will  not  outrun  the  buy- 
ing-power  of  the  people.  When  the  volume  of  produc- 
tion, increased  by  the  desire  of  capitalists  to  get  profits, 
does  exceed  the  buy  ing-power  of  the  people,  profits  will 
become  smaller.  As  profits  become  smaller,  the  compe- 
tition among  capitalists  for  profits  will  become  more  in- 
tense. As  competition  becomes  more  intense,  the  capi- 
talists that  are  economically  weakest  will  go  under.  But 
the  capitalists  that  remain  will  not  be  of  equal  strength 
and  again  the  strongest  will  compete  with  the  weakest 
to  drive  them  out  of  business.  Thus  the  struggle  will 
go  on  until  competition  shall  be  proved  to  be  not  the 
"  life  of  trade,"  but  the  death  of  trade.  Then  the  com- 
petitors will  go  about  it  to  restore  profits  by  combining 
into  great  corporations  and  ceasing  to  compete.  In 
other  words,  they  will  form  monopolies,  primarily  to 
end  competition,  but  having  been  formed,  they  will  also 
be  used  to  practice  extortion.  And  the  monopolists 
will  use  their  financial  power  to  control  government  and 
public  opinion,  to  the  end  that  their  monopolies  shall  not 
be  destroyed  by  government  and  public  opinion. 

But  the  Socialist  prophecy  of  seventy  years  ago  did 
not  stop  quite  there.  It  looked  ahead  and  asked: 
"  What  will  the  people  of  seventy  or  a  hundred  years 
hence  do  when  great  combinations  of  private  capital 
own  everything  and  rob  everybody?"  It  was  a  fair 
question.  What  could  the  people  do?  Obviously  they 
could  do  only  one  of  three  things.  They  could  destroy 
the  trusts.  They  could  let  them  remain  in  private 
ownership  and  try  to  regulate  them  through  the  govern- 
ment. Or  they  could  take  over  the  ownership  of  the 
trusts,  through  the  government,  and  operate  them  for 
the  public  good. 


172      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

The  destruction  of  the  trusts  was  considered  so  re- 
mote a  possibility  that  it  was  discarded.  These  early 
Socialists  could  not  believe  that  the  world  would  de- 
liberately go  back  to  small  competitive  production,  with 
all  its  waste  of  human  energy  and  natural  resources. 
Nor  did  they  believe  the  people  would  be  satisfied  to  let 
the  trusts  remain  in  private  hands.  They  did  not  be- 
lieve the  people,  through  the  government,  would  be  able 
to  regulate  the  trusts.  They  believed  that  the  trusts  so 
long  as  they  existed,  instead  of  being  regulated  by  the 
government,  would  regulate  the  government.  So  these 
early  Socialists  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  people 
would  ultimately  be  compelled  to  organize  politically 
upon  the  basis  of  their  working-class  needs,  capture  the 
powers  of  government  from  the  capitalist  class,  take 
over  the  ownership  of  all  the  great  industries,  and 
operate  them  for  the  public  good  rather  than  for  private 
profit. 

That  is  the  Socialist  program:  government  ownership 
of  the  trusts  together  with  public  ownership  of  the  gov- 
ernment. 

Many  gentlemen  declare  that  the  public  never  has 
owned  the  government,  does  not  own  it,  and  never  can 
own  it.  Such  gentlemen  declare  that  if  the  government 
owned  the  trusts  we  should  have  such  an  era  of  fraud, 
corruption,  deviltry,  and  despotism  as  the  world  has 
never  seen. 

We  Socialists  admit  that  if  capitalist  government 
should  own  all  of  the  trusts  we  should  doubtless  regret 
that  Columbus  ever  discovered  America.  But  we  re- 
spectfully point  out  to  such  gentlemen  that  they  derive 
their  views  of  government  from  the  sort  of  government 
we  now  have  and  from  the  sort  of  government  we  have 
Always  had.  We  respectfully  point  out  to  these  gentle,- 


SOCIALISM  173 

men  that  the  sort  of  government  we  have  and  the  sort 
of  government  we  have  always  had,  is  capitalist  govern- 
ment. Capitalist  government  is  government  by  a  small 
class  for  the  benefit  of  that  small  class. 

The  kind  of  government  that  we  Socialists  are  trying 
to  bring  about  is  government  by  the  working  class  for 
the  benefit  of  the  working  class.  And  when  we  say 
"  working  class  "  we  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as 
meaning  only  gentlemen  who  wear  patches  upon  their 
trousers  and  work  for  $1.50  a  day.  We  mean  all  of 
those  persons  who  are  expending  either  mental  or 
physical  effort  —  or  both  mental  and  physical  efforts  — 
to  bring  about  the  production  of  wealth.  We  mean 
railway  superintendents  no  less  than  railway  trackmen. 
We  mean  everyone  who  is  producing  wealth  as  distin- 
guished from  those  who  are  trying  to  extract  profits 
from  the  wealth  that  others  have  produced. 

But  how  do  we  propose  to  make  government  respon- 
sive to  the  will  of  the  people  ask  our  opponents?  It 
has  never  been  responsive  to  the  will  of  the  people. 
Are  we  miracle-workers? 

We  are  not.  Neither  are  we  blind.  Do  we  not  see 
congress  heavily  peppered  in  both  branches  with  the 
representatives  of  trusts?  Do  we  not  see  the  supreme 
court  composed  of  nine  gentlemen  whom  we  neither 
chose  nor  can  dismiss?  Do  we  not  see  these  black- 
robed  gentlemen  handing  the  trusts  what  they  want,  and 
taking  from  us  what  we  want?  Do  we  not  see  them 
declaring  the  laws  we  want  unconstitutional,  and  declar- 
ing the  laws  we  do  not  want  constitutional? 

Therefore,  when  we  gain  control  of  this  government* 
as  we  confidently  expect  to  do  before  many  years,  we 
shall  call  a  constitutional  convention  and  do  a  few  things 
to  our  constitution.  We  shall  take  from  the.  President 


174      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

and  the  corporations  the  onerous  duty  of  selecting  jus- 
tices of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  and  entrust 
this  task  to  the  people.  We  shall  install  the  initiative 
and  the  referendum  upon  a  national  scale  so  that  the  peo- 
ple can  enact  any  law  they  want  that  their  representa- 
tives may  refuse  to  enact,  and  kill  any  law  that  they  do 
not  want  that  their  representatives  refuse  to  kill.  And 
we  shall  apply  the  recall  to  every  elective  official  from 
the  President  down.  We  shall  proceed  upon  the  theory 
that  if  the  people  may  be  trusted  to  elect  a  man  whom 
they  do  not  know  they  may  also  be  trusted  to  fire  a  man 
whom  they  do  know  to  be  bad.  Doubtless  we  shall  be 
very  revolutionary  and  very  incendiary  in  all  of  this,  but 
we  are  going  to  do  it.  We  shall  expect  to  bring  about 
no  Utopia,  but  we  shall  expect  to  bring  about  a  govern- 
ment that  is  as  wise  as  the  people. 

"  Ah,  but  the  capitalists  will  bedevil  you  still,"  say 
our  opponents.  "  They  will  get  into  office  by  hook  or 
crook  and  put  your  plans  awry." 

Kind  Christian  friends,  you  are  wrong  again.  You 
have  forgotten  about  the  boy  who  wanted  the  core  of 
the  other  boy's  apple.  There  ain't  going  to  be  no  capi- 
talists under  Socialism.  Under  Socialism  the  people, 
through  the  government,  will  furnish  their  own  capital. 
No  possibility  will  exist  for  private  capitalists  to  exist. 
Government  will  not  be  corrupted  by  the  senators  of  the 
steel  trust  because  the  government  will  be  the  steel  trust. 
Had  you  never  thought  of  that?  Will  you  not  please 
think  of  it  again  before  you  say  that  under  Socialism 
corrupt  men  would  dominate  the  government.  Private 
profit  is  what  makes  men  corrupt.  We  are  going  to  do 
away  with  private  profit.  We  are  going  to  make  things 
for  use  instead  of  for  profit. 

"  A  beautiful  dream,"  say  gentlemen  who  feel  that 


SOCIALISM  175 

it  is  almost  a  shame  to  wake  us  up.  "Let  us  grant," 
they  continue,  "  that  government  could  wisely  manage 
industry  if  it  could  become  the  owner  of  industry,  but 
have  you  figured  out  where  you  could  get  the  money  to 
buy  the  trusts?" 

Indeed  we  have.  It  is  a  poor  trust  that  does  not 
make  an  average  net  profit  of  10  per  cent,  per  annum. 
Most  of  them  make  much  more.  When  we  gain  con- 
trol of  the  government  we  shall  enact  laws  compelling 
the  trusts  to  sell  to  the  government  at  prices  that  repre- 
sent actual  values;  no  wind,  no  water  —  just  values. 
We  shall  not  try  to  buy  all  the  trusts  at  once.  We  shall 
acquire  them  one  at  a  time  and  take  over  the  reins  of 
one  before  we  grasp  for  the  reins  of  another.  And  to 
all  of  these  trusts  we  shall  give  in  return  for  their  prop- 
erties United  States  bonds  payable  in  50  years.  That 
will  spread  the  cost  of  the  trusts  over  two  and  a  half 
generations.  Then  we  shall  establish  a  sinking  fund 
and  put  into  it  each  year  two  per  cent,  of  the  face  value 
of  the  bonds.  We  shall  also  establish  sinking  funds  to 
provide  for  deterioration,  but  that  will  be  a  private  mat- 
ter among  ourselves  and  need  not  concern  the  trusts. 
And  we  shall  get  the  money  we  put  into  these  sinking 
funds  by  selling  goods  at  a  little  more  than  two  per  cent, 
in  excess  of  what  it  costs  to  produce  them.  In  other 
words,  we  shall  make  the  trusts  pay  for  themselves. 
And  while  they  are  paying  for  themselves  the  people 
will  be  enabled,  to  buy  goods  almost  at  cost  instead  of 
paying  the  exorbitant  profits  that  the  trusts  now  exact. 

At  any  rate,  such  is  the  substance  of  the  plan  that 
Representative  Victor  L.  Berger  embodied  in  a  bill  that 
he  introduced  in  congress,  and  without  doubt  some  such 
plan  will  be  ultimately  adopted.  Only  one  development 
can  prevent  it.  If  Socialism  shall  be  too  slow  in  com- 


176      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

ing,  the  tyranny  of  the  trusts  will  undoubtedly  compel 
the  people  to  confiscate  them,  precisely  as  Lincoln  con- 
fiscated the  slaves.  Henry  Clay,  twenty  years  before 
the  Civil  War,  wanted  the  government  to  buy  the  slaves 
at  double  their  market  price  and  thus  avoid  the  war  that 
he  saw  coming.  But  the  slave  owners  did  not  want  to 
give  up  their  good  thing.  So  their  good  thing  was  taken 
from  them  by  a  very  good  man,  and  they  received  not 
a  cent  of  compensation.  We  Socialists  prefer  to  pay  — 
and  we  know  how  we  could  pay.  We  want  no  war. 
We  live  here,  and  we  want  this  to  be  a  good  place  in 
which  to  live.  It  can  never  be  a  better  place  in  which 
to  live  until  the  common  people  learn  how  to  use  the 
government,  to  promote  their  own  interests  and  obtain  a 
constitution  under  which  this  can  be  a  real  republic. 


APPENDIX. 

NATIONAL  SOCIALIST  PLATFORM 
(Adopted  at  Indianapolis,  May,  1912) 

THE  Socialist  Party  of  the  United  States  declares  that  the 
capitalist  system  has  outgrown  its  historical  function,  and  has 
become  utterly  incapable  of  meeting  the  problems  now  con- 
fronting society.    We  denounce  this  outgrown  system  as  incompe- 
tent and  corrupt  and  the  source  of  unspeakable  misery  and  suffer- 
ing to  the  whole  working  class. 

Under  this  system  the  industrial  equipment  of  the  nation  has 
passed  into  the  absolute  control  of  a  plutocracy  which  exacts  an  an- 
nual tribute  of  millions  of  dollars  from  the  producers.  Unafraid 
of  any  organized  resistance,  it  stretches  out  its  greedy  hands  over 
the  still  undeveloped  resources  of  the  nation  —  the  land,  the  mines, 
the  forests  and  the  water-powers  of  every  State  in  the  Union. 

In  spite  of  the  multiplication  of  labor-saving  machines  and  im- 
proved methods  in  industry  which  cheapen  the  cost  of  production, 
the  share  of  the  producers  grows  ever  less,  and  the  prices  of  all  the 
necessities  of  life  steadily  increase.  The  boasted  prosperity  of  this 
nation  is  for  the  owning  class  alone.  To  the  rest  it  means  only 
greater  hardship  and  misery.  The  high  cost  of  living  is  felt  in 
every  home.  Millions  of  wage-workers  have  seen  the  purchasing 
power  of  their  wages  decrease  until  life  has  become  a  desperate 
battle  for  mere  existence. 

Multitudes  of  unemployed  walk  the  streets  of  our  cities  or  trudge 
from  State  to  State  awaiting  the  will  of  the  masters  to  move  the 
wheels  of  industry. 

The  farmers  in  every  State  are  plundered  by  the  increasing  prices 
exacted  for  tools  and  machinery  and  by  extortionate  rents,  freight 
rates  and  storage  charges. 

Capitalist  concentration  is  mercilessly  crushing  the  class  of  small 
business  men  and  driving  its  members  into  the  ranks  of  propertiless 
wage  workers.  The  overwhelming  majority  of  the  people  of  Amer- 
ica are  being  forced  under  a  yoke  of  bondage  by  this  soulless  in- 
dustrial despotism. 

It  is  this  capitalist  system  that  is  responsible  for  the  increasing 
burden  of  armaments,  the  poverty,  slums,  child  labor,  most  of  the 
insanity,  crime  and  prostitution,  and  much  of  the  disease  that  afflicts 
mankind. 

'77 


178      OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

Under  this  system  the  working  class  is  exposed  to  poisonous  con- 
ditions, to  frightful  and  needless  perils  to  life  and  limb,  is  walled 
around  with  court  decisions,  injunctions  and  unjust  laws,  and  is 
preyed  upon  incessantly  for  the  benefit  of  the  controlling  oligarchy 
of  wealth.  Under  it  also,  the  children  of  the  working  class  are 
doomed  to  ignorance,  drudging  toil  and  darkened  lives. 

In  the  face  of  these  evils,  so  manifest  that  all  thoughtful  observers 
are  appalled  at  them,  the  legislative  representatives  of  the  Republi- 
can, Democratic,  and  all  reform  parties  remain  the  faithful  servants 
of  the  oppressors.  Measures  designed  to  secure  to  the  wage  earners 
of  this  nation  as  humane  and  just  treatment  as  is  already  enjoyed 
by  the  wage  earners  of  all  other  civilized  nations  have  been  smoth- 
ered in  committee  without  debate,  and  laws  ostensibly  designed  to 
bring  relief  to  the  farmers  and  general  consumers  are  juggled  and 
transformed  into  instruments  for  the  exaction  of  further  tribute. 
The  growing  unrest  under  oppression  has  driven  these  two  old 
parties  to  the  enactment  of  a  variety  of  regulative  measures,  none 
of  which  has  limited  in  any  appreciable  degree  the  power  of  the 
plutocracy,  and  some  of  which  have  been  perverted  into  means  for 
increasing  that  power.  Anti-trust  laws,  railroad  restrictions  and 
regulations,  with  the  prosecutions,  indictments  and  investigations 
based  upon  such  legislation,  have  proved  to  be  utterly  futile  and 
ridiculous.  Nor  has  this  plutocracy  been  seriously  restrained  or 
even  threatened  by  any  Republican  or  Democratic  executive.  It  has 
continued  to  grow  in  power  and  insolence  alike  under  the  adminis- 
trations of  Cleveland,  McKinley,  Roosevelt  and  Taft. 

In  addition  to  this  legislative  juggling  and  this  executive  con- 
nivance, the  courts  of  America  have  sanctioned  and  strengthened  the 
hold  of  this  plutocracy  as  the  Dred  Scott  and  other  decisions 
strengthened  the  slave  power  before  the  Civil  War. 

We  declare,  therefore,  that  the  longer  sufferance  of  these  condi- 
tions is  impossible,  and  we  purpose  to  end  them  all.  We  declare 
them  to  be  the  product  of  the  present  system  in  which  industry  is 
carried  on  for  private  greed,  instead  of  for  the  welfare  of  society. 
We  declare,  furthermore,  that  for  these  evils  there  will  be  and  can 
be  no  remedy  and  no  substantial  relief  except  through  Socialism, 
under  which  industry  will  be  carried  on  for  the  common  good  and 
every  worker  receive  the  full  social  value  of  the  wealth  he  creates. 

Society  is  divided  into  warring  groups  and  classes,  based  upon 
material  interests.  Fundamentally,  this  struggle  is  a  conflict  be- 
tween the  two  main  classes,  one  of  which,  the  capitalist  class,  owns 
the  means  of  production,  and  the  other,  the  working  class,  must  use 
these  means  of  production  on  terms  dictated  by  the  owners. 

The  capitalist  class,  though  few  in  numbers,  absolutely  controls 
the  Government— legislative,  executive  and  judicial.  This  class  owns 


APPENDIX  179 

the  machinery  of  gathering  and  disseminating  news  through  its  or- 
ganized press.  It  subsidizes  seats  of  learning  —  the  colleges  and 
schools  —  and  even  religious  and  moral  agencies.  It  has  also  the 
added  prestige  which  established  customs  give  to  any  order  of  so- 
ciety, right  or  wrong. 

The  working  class,  which  includes  all  those  who  are  forced  to 
work  for  a  living,  whether  by  hand  or  by  brain,  in  shop,  mine  or  on 
the  soil,  vastly  outnumbers  the  capitalist  class.  Lacking  effective 
organization  and  class  solidarity,  this  class  is  unable  to  enforce  its 
will.  Given  such  class  solidarity  and  effective  organization,  the 
workers  will  have  the  power  to  make  all  laws  and  control  all  indus- 
try in  their  own  interest. 

All  political  parties  are  the  expression  of  economic  class  interests. 
All  other  parties  than  the  Socialist  Party  represents  one  or  another 
group  of  the  ruling  capitalist  class.  Their  political  conflicts  reflect 
merely  superficial  rivalries  between  competing  capitalist  groups. 
However  they  result,  these  conflicts  have  no  issue  of  real  value  to 
the  workers.  Whether  the  Democrats  or  Republicans  win  politically, 
it  is  the  capitalist  class  that  is  victorious  economically. 

The  Socialist  Party  is  the  political  expression  of  the  economic 
interests  of  the  workers.  Its  defeats  have  been  their  defeats,  and 
its  victories  their  victories.  It  is  a  party  founded  on  the  science  and 
laws  of  social  development.  It  proposes  that,  since  all  social  ne- 
cessities to-day  are  socially  produced,  the  means  of  their  production 
shall  be  socially  owned  and  democratically  controlled. 

In  the  face  of  the  economic  and  political  aggressions  of  the  capi- 
talist class  the  only  reliance  left  the.  workers  is  that  of  their  eco- 
nomic organizations  and  their  political  power.  By  the  intelligent  and 
class-conscious  use  of  these  they  may  resist  successfully  the  capitalist 
class,  break  the  fetters  of  wage  slavery,  and  fit  themselves  for  the 
future  society,  which  is  to  displace  the  capitalist  system.  The  So- 
cialist Party  appreciates  the  full  significance  of  class  organization  and 
urges  the  wage  earners,  the  working  farmers  and  all  other  useful 
workers  everywhere  to  organize  for  economic  and  political  action,, 
and  we  pledge  ourselves  to  support  the  toilers  of  the  fields  as  well' 
as  those  in  the  shops,  factories  and  mines  of  the  nation  in  their 
struggle  for  economic  justice. 

In  the  defeat  or  victory  of  the  working  class  party  in  this  new 
struggle  for  freedom  lies  the  defeat  or  triumph  of  the  common  people 
of  all  economic  groups,  as  well  as  the  failure  or  the  triumph  of 
popular  government.  Thus  the  Socialist  Party  is  the  party  of  the 
present  day  revolution,  which  marks  the  transition  from  economic 
individualism  to  Socialism,  from  wage  slavery  to  free  co-operation, 
from  capitalist  oligarchy  to  industrial  democracy. 

As  measures  calculated  to  strengthen  the  working  class  in  its 


iSo       OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

fight  for  the  realization  of  its  ultimate  ainr,  the  Co-operative  Com- 
monwealth, and  to  increase  the  power  of  resistance  against  capitalist 
oppression,  we  advocate  and  pledge  ourselves  and  our  elected  of- 
ficers to  the  following  program: 

COLLECTIVE  OWNERSHIP 

1.  The  collective  ownership  and  democratic  management  of  rail- 
roads, wire  and  wireless  telegraphs  and  telephones,  express  services, 
steamboat  lines  and  all  other  social  means  of  transportation  and 
communication  and  of  all  large  scale  industries. 

2.  The  immediate  acquirement  by  the  municipalities,  the  States 
or  the  federal  government  of  all  grain  elevators,  stock  yards,  storage 
warehouses  and  other  distributing  agencies,  in  order  to  reduce  the 
present  extortionate  cost  of  living. 

3.  The  extension  of  the  public  domain  to  include  mines,  quarries, 
oil  wells,  forests  and  water  power. 

4.  The  further  conservation  and  development  of  natural  resources 
for  the  use  and  benefit  of  all  the  people : 

(a)     By  scientific  forestation  and  timber  protection. 
(&)     By  the  reclamation  of  arid  and  swamp  tracts. 

(c)  By  the  storage  of  flood  waters  and  the  utilization  of  water 
power. 

(d)  By  the  stoppage  of  the  present  extravagant  waste  of  the 
soil  and  of  the  products  of  mines  and  oil  wells. 

(?)     By  the  development  of  highway  and  waterway  systems. 

5.  The  collective  ownership  of  land  wherever  practicable,  and,  in 
cases  where  such  ownership  is  impracticable,  the  appropriation  by 
taxation  of  the  annual  rental  value  of  all  land  held  for  speculation. 

6.  The  collective  ownership  and  democratic  management  of  the 
banking  and  currency  system. 

UNEM  PLOY  MENT 

The  immediate  government  relief  of  the  unemployed  by  the  ex- 
tension of  all  useful  public  works.  All  persons  employed  on  such 
works  to  be  engaged  directly  by  the  government  under  a  workday 
of  not  more  than  eight  hours  and  not  less  than  the  prevailing  union 
wages.  The  government  also  to  establish  employment  bureaus;  to 
lend  money  to  States  and  municipalities  without  interest  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  on  public  works,  and  to  take  such  other  meas- 
ures within  its  power  as  will  lessen  the  widespread  misery  of  the 
workers  caused  by  the  misrule  of  the  capitalist  class. 

INDUSTRIAL  DEMANDS 

The  conservation  of  human  resources,  particularly  of  the  lives  and 
well-being  of  the  workers  and  their  families: 


APPENDIX  181 

T.  By  shortening  the  workday  in  keeping  with  the  increased  pro- 
ductiveness of  machinery. 

2.  By  securing  to  every  worker  a  rest  period  of  not  less  than  a 
day  and  a  half  in  each  week. 

3.  By  securing  a  more  effective  inspection  of  workshops,  facto- 
ries and  mines. 

4.  By  forbidding  the  employment  of  children  under  16  years  of 
age. 

5.  By  the  co-operative  organization  of  industries  in  federal  peni- 
tentiaries and  workshops  for  the  benefit  of  convicts  and  their  de- 
pendents. 

6.  By  forbidding  the  interstate  transportation  of  the  products  of 
child-labor,  of  convict  labor  and  of  all  uninspected  factories  and 
mines. 

7.  By  abolishing  the  profit  system1  in  government  work,  and  sub- 
stituting either  the  direct  hire  of  labor  or  the  awarding  of  contracts 
to  co-operative  groups  of  workers. 

8.  By  establishing  minimum  wage  scales. 

9.  By  abolishing  official  charity  and  substituting  a  non-contribu- 
tory system  of  old  age  pensions,  a  general  system  of  insurance  by 
the  State  of  all  its  members  against  unemployment  and  invalidism 
and  a  system  of  compulsory  insurance  by  employers  of  their  work- 
ers, without  cost  to  the  latter,  against  industrial  disease,  accidents 
and  death. 

POLITICAL  DEMANDS 

The  absolute  freedom  of  press,  speech  and  assemblage. 

The  adoption  of  a  gradual  income  tax,  the  increase  of  the  rates  of 
the  present  corporation  tax  and  the  extension  of  inheritance  taxes, 
graduated  in  proportion  to  the  value  of  the  estate  and  to  nearness 
of  kin  —  the  proceeds  of  these  taxes  to  be  employed  in  the  socializa- 
tion of  industry. 

The  abolition  of  the  monopoly  ownership  of  patents  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  collective  ownership,  with  direct  rewards  to  inventors 
by  premiums  or  royalties. 

Unrestricted  and  equal  suffrage  for  men  and  women. 

The  adoption  of  the  initiative,  referendum  and  recall  and  of  pro- 
portional representation,  nationally  as  well  as  locally. 

The  abolition  of  the  Senate  and  the  veto  power  of  the  President. 

The  election  of  the  President  and  the  Vice  President  by  direct 
vote  of  the  people. 

The  abolition  of  the  power  usurped  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  to  pass  upon  the  constitutionality  of  the  legislation 
enacted  by  Congress.  National  laws  to  be  repealed  only  by  act  of 
Congress  or  by  the  voters  in  a  majority  of  the  States. 


182       OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 

The  granting  of  the  right  of  suffrage  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia with  representation  in  Congress  and  a  democratic  form  of  mu- 
nicipal government  for  purely  local  affairs. 

The  extension  of  democratic  government  to  all  United  States  ter- 
ritory. 

The  enactment  of  further  measures  for  general  education  and  par- 
ticularly for  vocational  education  in  useful  pursuits.  The  Bureau 
of  Education  to  be  made  a  department. 

The  enactment  of  further  measures  for  the  conservation  of  health. 
The  creation  of  an  independent  Bureau  of  Health  with  such  re- 
strictions as  will  secure  full  liberty  for  all  schools  of  practice. 

The  separation  of  the  present  Bureau  of  Labor  from  the  Depart- 
ment of  Commerce  and  Labor  and  its  elevation  to  the  rank  of  a  de- 
partment. 

Abolition  of  the  federal  district  courts  and  the  United  States  Cir- 
cuit Courts  of  Appeals.  State  courts  to  have  jurisdiction  in  all 
cases  arising  between  citizens  of  the  several  States  and  foreign  cor- 
porations. The  election  of  all  judges  for  short  terms. 

The  immediate  curbing  of  the  power  of  the  courts  to  issue  injunc- 
tions. 

The  free  administration  of  justice. 

The  calling  of  a  convention  for  the  revision  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States. 

Such  measures  of  relief  as  we  may  be  able  to  force  from  capitalism 
are  but  a  preparation  of  the  workers  to  seize  the  whole  powers  of 
government  in  order  that  they  may  thereby  lay  hold  of  the  whole) 
system  of  socialized  industry  and  thus  come  to  their  rightful  inherit- 
ance. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YB  07812 


774193 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


